ISBN: 978-972-8924-42-3 © 2007 IADIS

DEVELOPING A VIRTUAL ENVIRONMENT FOR

TEACHING HOTEL MANAGEMENT STUDENTS

Paul Penfold, Henry Ma and Wai Fan Kong

The Hong Kong Polytechnic University
Hung Hom, Kowloon, Hong Kong

ABSTRACT
This paper outlines the development and use of a virtual hotel for teaching hotel operations through e-simulations.
Graduates from hotel schools beginning work in the hotel industry need an appropriate mix of technical knowledge, skills
and attitudes. However, many university courses in hotel management are theoretical, and instructors have difficulty in
developing students’ technical and interpersonal skills to work effectively in a service environment. The virtual hotel
provides hotel management instructors with a realistic hotel setting, offering challenges and scenarios that allow students
to apply their theoretical learning to a range of realistic hotel situations, and develop their problem-solving and workplace
skills. The virtual hotel is an active learning tool that can be used by different classes and instructors to enhance learning
and skills application, and help students prepare and respond to real world situations in a non-threatening way.

KEYWORDS
hospitality education, virtual hotel, simulations, virtual learning, hotel management

1. INTRODUCTION
Today’s educators face new challenges not experienced by teachers in the past. They are dealing with
students who are part of the ‘Net Generation’(Oblinger, 2003), brought up in a 3-D world of virtual
communication, visual complexity and online identities. They want and expect more engaging, empowering
and interactive learning experiences in their student life than universities are able to give them. Prensky
(2001) writes of the differences between ‘Digital Natives’, the generation that grew up with video games and
computers, and ‘Digital Immigrants’, people who have started using computers as adults. The digital natives
are used to instant gratification, hyperlinked information, and the need for rapid reflexes, and yet they are
being taught by digital immigrants, who are used to learning from books and communicating by phone.
People who want to teach digital natives need to figure out how they think and adjust their methods to
communicate at their level.
Students today are in touch with technology and innovation in their everyday lives through digital media,
PDA phones and their online networks. These young people are community-focused (especially here in Asia
as compared to the West), they belong to virtual communities to discuss shared interests (communities of
interest), to develop social relations (community of relationships), and to explore new identities
(communities of fantasy) (Hagel and Armstrong, 1997). According to Zemsky and Massey (2004), students
want to use technology in order to be entertained through music, games and movies, to be connected to one
another and to present themselves and their work. Our institutions are playing catch up, and not doing it very
successfully. Yet, despite this situation, there are signs of change, with learning taking place in some
academic departments which demonstrate student-centred and innovative teaching through e-Learning and
“Serious Games” (Annetta, Murray, Laird, Bohr and Park, 2006).

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2. SIMULATIONS IN EDUCATION
“Simulations are the first fundamental change to education since the textbook,” according to Aldrich (2004).
His thesis is that people learn best by doing, and simulations enable educationalists to provide authentic and
exciting learning experiences for students. However, time, cost, expertise and other factors make it hard to
begin and finish a good simulation. Tools are being developed that make it easier to do the creative parts, but
the key is in imaginative instructional design and development. Simulations can be relatively simple and
extremely complex. From the gaming world, the developers of SimCity produced SimAnt and SimEarth, but
both are very different. SimAnt is simple enough to be used by youngsters, whereas SimEarth is extremely
difficult to manage and unsatisfying, as if you left it for any period of time the parameters of your virtual
world would be eroded by the simulation itself.
Aldridge (2004) suggested there are three types of simulations – linear, cyclical and open-ended and each
have their strengths and weaknesses, and a main purpose or outcome. Musselwhite (2003) classified
simulations into four levels, both for students and for facilitators (Table 1). Participant interaction was graded
according to degree of interaction, predictability of outcomes, and potential for conflict and emotion.
Facilitator issues related to administrative concerns and skill level; including time to prepare for the
simulation, complexity of running the simulation, number of facilitators required, level of feedback expected,
and overall observation and debrief skills required.
Table 1. Simulation Level Classification Criteria (Musselwhite 2003)
Participant Interaction Facilitator Competence and Skill
Criteria Participant Predictability Emotional Ease of Individual Team Observation,
interactions of outcomes arousal/ conflict administration assessment & assessment & facilitation,
potential feedback feedback debrief skills
Level 1 Interactive High Unlikely but Little No Possible Entry level
possible complexity
Level 2 Highly Intermediate Somewhat likely Some Minimal Likely Intermediate
interactive complexity
Level 3 Complex Low Very likely Moderate Possible Yes Good
complexity
Level 4 Complex Low Expected Complex Expected Yes Very good
Simulations are often suggested as a replacement of real-life situations which are too dangerous, too
expensive, or impractical to allow students to experience for real. Yet providing practical experience is a key
complement of the learning process, helping students learn the application beyond the theoretical context.
Simulations provide an environment where students can explore, experiment, question and reflect on real life
situations which would otherwise be inaccessible. In addition simulations can help students visualise
dynamic behaviour, overcome practical difficulties and introduce new concepts. However many educational
simulation games are poorly constructed and simply not fun. In addition, most games, even some intended to
be educational, do not involve useful learning. Learning goals have to be essential for winning or the material
is likely to be ignored (Lepper and Cordova, 1992). It is extremely challenging for any educational institution
to develop a well produced simulation as they cannot compete on budget with industry, nor can they compete
for talented game designers, as the best will be paid a fortune to join the industry. So it is likely that
educational simulation games will be of a lower visual quality and entertainment value than those in the
marketplace, and less stimulating. So how can educationalists produce simulations that are worth investing
time and money in, and provide a worthwhile, enjoyable, stimulating and challenging learning experience?
The following is an attempt by one university to do this within the constraints of time, budget and personnel.

3. DEVELOPING A VIRTUAL HOTEL ENVIRONMENT

Along with a sound academic curriculum, the challenge for most universities is to provide students with a
professional edge so that they can function in the real world of work. For many students, to be thrust into a
service industry which sets high standards of operation and personal service is quite daunting. How to
prepare students for the technical challenges of front office operations, food service or dealing with high-end
customers in a 5-star hotel is not something you can easily learn in the classroom. In response to this, the

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School of Hotel & Tourism Management in the Hong Kong Polytechnic University has developed a
workplace simulator (a virtual hotel) in which students can practice 'real world' tasks – including problem-
solving, customer relations, interpersonal skills and operational procedures. It has been used in tutorials
where the teacher can introduce and demonstrate various skills, and students can enter and use it to practice
and experience various hospitality scenarios they would experience in the actual hospitality environment.
Various tasks, quests, assessments and rewards to motivate and challenge learners are built into the program.
Hospitality and tourism is a key industry for Hong Kong and recognized by the Government as one of the
pillars of the Hong Kong economy. The local tourism industry reached record figures in 2005 with over 23
million visitor arrivals, up 7.1% year-on-year (Hong Kong Tourism Board, 2006). Hotel occupancy was at an
average of 86% in 2005, and by June 2006, there were 601 hotels/tourist guesthouses in Hong Kong, totaling
48,197 rooms. Many hotel and tourism courses have a strong operational and customer service element, and
yet students have little experience of many hospitality scenarios discussed in their classes. To help university
students prepare for industry placements and eventual work, there was a need to provide them with a valid
and realistic training in hotel service operations.
The virtual hotel was developed by collaboration between the School of Hotel and Tourism Management
(SHTM) and the School of Design (SD) to provide an opportunity for students to practice customer service
and operational skills in an online, multi-user 3D simulation. The simulation aims to help teachers provide a
realistic hospitality setting, and provide challenges and scenarios that allow students to apply their theoretical
learning to situations, develop their thinking skills and develop workplace skills. It was designed as an active
learning tool that could be used by different classes and lecturers to enhance learning and skills application,
and help students to face realistic workplace situations, and learn how to respond and prepare for live
situations in a non-threatening way.
The objectives of the virtual hotel were: 1) to provide an edutainment simulation to use in foodservice,
hotel and tourism courses; 2) to extend the platform for Work-Integrated Education (industrial placement)
preparation; 3) to provide an opportunity for students to practice customer service and interpersonal skills in
an online, multi-user 3D simulation; and 4) to provide an active learning tool that can be used by different
classes and lecturers to enhance learning and skills application. The context of The virtual hotel is aligned
with four hospitality courses – Front Office Operations; Housekeeping Operations; Food and Beverage
Operations; and Principles of Food Service – catering for classes ranging from between 30 to 200 students.

Figure 1. Front Desk Workplace Figure 2. Housekeeping Operations

The interface for the simulations is composed of four main components: 1) Workplace (virtual
environment presented by 3-D animations); 2) Performance indicators (measurement for accuracy of
responses/actions), 3) Action panel (panel for selection and submission of dialogic response or action), 4)
Information switches (individual pages storing essential information and clues for users to comprehend the
learning activities). Dialogic responses from hotel guests are presented by dialogue boxes, facial expression
sand synthesized sound. The computer or a special window provides instant feedback to the user about the
accuracy of choice of actions in the operation practices and a quest prompt appears during the dialogue
requiring the user to provide appropriate answers by referring to the given information.

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Figure 3. Cocktail Making Figure 4. Food Costing and Preparation

4. FINDINGS & DISCUSSION

The project shows that a virtual environment for teaching hotel management is feasible, but further research
should be performed to understand how effective the learning outcomes are attained. Zyda (2005) mentioned
that in order to help the future development of game-based learning, we must able to “transform the game
production process from a handcrafted, labor intensive effort to one with shorter, more predictable production
timelines that still manages to provide innovations and increased complexity”. He further suggested that we
shall look into three components namely the infrastructure, cognitive game design, and immersion.
Based on Gee’s (2003) learning principles of good games design, we further discuss our findings from the
project. The project is a brand new experience for both the development team and the faculty. We lack a
well-developed infrastructure for producing and disseminating the virtual learning environment. Limited
budget, insufficient production time and inadequate experience all affected our effective implementation.
Without special consideration of workload issues for participating teaching staff and additional support to
facilitate their initiatives in the virtual hotel development, this hampers the contribution of staff to the project.
Our evaluation of the experiences of 45 students in a Higher Diploma Program in Hotel Management in
using the Virtual Hotel Simulator gave us some initial feedback on the usability and effectiveness of the
simulator. We used a 30-question survey with a 5-point Likert Scale, where 5=strongly agree 4=agree,
3=neutral, 2=disagree, and 1=strongly disagree. This simple evaluation (Table 2) indicated the following.
The simulator content and materials were relevant, accurate and helped students understand the course
concepts better. The contents were also perceived as clear, logical and well organized with an appropriate
level of difficulty as well as being attractive and with application to real work situations. The problems
students experienced included lack of convenience when accessing the virtual hotel, as well as problems with
an interface that is not smooth and quick to use and that contained errors. Students also said that they found it
helpful, yet not so enjoyable – it was a serious game rather than a ‘fun-filled’ experience.
Table 2. Students’ Experience of using the Virtual Hotel Simulator
Standard
Variables Mean Ranking
Deviation
The materials are relevant to my course of study 4.045455 0.568742 1
The materials contain accurate information. 3.863636 0.509943 2
The materials helped me review the things covered in the lectures 3.659091 0.644951 3
The simulation was a useful supplement to help me understand the course. 3.659091 0.775892 4
The materials have helped me to better remember the concepts in this course. 3.636364 0.809562 5
The activities helped me gain a better understanding of the subject content. 3.636364 0.917299 6
The layout design of the simulation is attractive. 3.477273 0.698458 7
The materials are relevant to my needs. 3.454545 0.547916 8
The materials helped me revise the things covered in the lectures 3.454545 0.663134 9
The simulation helped me familiarize myself with the topics before/after lectures 3.431818 0.818329 10
The simulation is visually attractive. 3.431818 0.661138 11
The materials are arranged in a clear, logical and orderly manner. 3.431818 0.728098 12

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The materials are of appropriate difficulty. 3.386364 0.813145 13

What I learned in the lecture helped me to complete the simulated tasks. 3.386364 0.654711 14
I can effectively manage the workload of the simulated tasks. 3.340909 0.861129 15
The materials have helped me apply the concepts to real-life situations. 3.272727 0.727008 16
I would like to study further courses using the simulated materials. 3.227273 0.885638 17
The materials have helped me to perform better in the course assignments. 3.181818 0.724095 18
The materials have given me confidence in some professional hotel roles. 3.136364 0.765261 19
The simulation requires software/browsers that I find difficult to get. 3.136364 1.002112 20
The simulation is user-friendly. 3.113636 0.945391 21
The materials have helped me in solving hotel-based problems. 3.068182 0.759367 22
The simulation requires hardware features that I find difficult to get. 3.068182 0.949853 23
I can manage to easily move around and interact with this simulation. 3.022727 0.792072 24
Web-complemented learning is more effective than classroom teaching alone. 3.000000 0.806947 25
I found it convenient to access the simulation. 2.977273 0.927328 26
I felt comfortable using computers for the course. 2.886364 1.165710 27
I find browsing the simulation smooth and fast. 2.840909 0.938658 28
I enjoyed doing the simulated tasks. 2.772727 0.911519 29
The simulation is free of errors of various kinds (e.g. wrong page/graphic etc.) 2.727273 0.898672 30
Student evaluation through qualitative feedback also provided the developers with suggestions for
improvement, how to improve the interface as well as aspects they enjoyed or found helpful in learning.
Positive comments included, “I like the Service Procedures simulation because there are some questions
about F&B. I can learn more about F&B and this part is most useful for my study.” “Service procedure is the
part I like the most. Since it's reality for me to practice what I have learned and also close to the real situation
in the hotel. The customer's responses motivate me to do better.” “This is a good revision tool. The answers
to the questions in the assessment part can be easily found in the relevant textbooks. Therefore, we can get
familiar with the teaching materials which we learnt in class.” Areas for improvement included, “The
components are okay but in fact it's not very good to keep your eyes on the screen, especially when playing
the floor plan, I felt tired after finished.” “It's really inconvenient to download the program before we access
to the simulation.” “The floor plan has some areas to improve, such as the size of the restaurant. And it can
provide more tools for us to choose.” “I think the sound effects can be improved.
The linear approach of the virtual hotel provides a structured flow of learning that is closely related with
learning outcomes and assessment of performance. Since people can only affiliate the meaning of words with
their experience (Barsalou 1999), the simulation gives them a situated meaning that incorporates actions,
images and dialogues and allows students to understand these situations in different context. The simulation
provides well-ordered problems that incorporate students’ prior learning into a progressive problem-solving
scenario. In real world situations, problems encountered are quite complex and random, and sometimes have
no necessary relationship to their prior experience. The virtual hotel facilitates “just-in-time” and “on-
demand” information for the player when they need it. A simulation environment provides students an
identity and engages them the environment. In addition, it provides an interactive learning experience with a
real world simulated situation which is much better than a passive textbook. The game reacts with the player,
giving feedback and new problems. The virtual learning environment also encourages students to take risks
and learn from failures that might not be possible in real world or work placement situation.
The linear approach of the virtual hotel is good for some basic skills training. For more advanced skills
like analytical and interpersonal skills, an open-ended approach would be more effective. The virtual hotel
provides isolated events learning. It can be further improved to allow system thinking with interrelated events
and situations in a massive on-line approach. This is more closely related to a real world scenario. A massive
on-line environment also facilitates peer learning through knowledge distribution. Team players contribute
their knowledge and further improve learning environment through peer learning.

5. CONCLUSION
There are other scenario-based learning materials available in the marketplace, however the unique strength
of The virtual hotel is that it provides the chance for students to visualise and interact with the environment at
their preferred pace and choice of job role. One of the pedagogical considerations of The virtual hotel is that
it is closely aligned with learning outcomes and assessment of performance. It is acknowledged that students

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may find the linear approach less enjoyable than a cyclical or open-ended approach, but the linear method is
actually suitable for the kind of scenarios the students will experience, where they need to follow through in a
systematic way, using agreed procedures to satisfy customer and manager expectations. There is a degree of
ambiguity in the scenarios in that interpersonal skills need to be exercised in order to deal with people
problems and unexpected situations. Here the student is given a range of options or asked to find a solution
based upon information provided in various forms or based on previous scenarios. The simulation overall
should enable the student to gain confidence in dealing with unfamiliar situations, as well as be able to follow
operational procedures accurately and confidently.
Teachers’ responses (in focus group interviews) to the virtual hotel has been generally very positive, but
with some concerns and reservations. Firstly, most academics were glad to have an alternative, interactive
tool to help teach some of the scenarios. We chose the scenarios based upon teaching methods used in the
classroom such as role play or classroom simulation exercises. These were the obvious areas to replicate in
designing an online simulation tool. Teachers recognized that skills needed for work placements were hard to
learn in the traditional classroom and therefore were keen to help develop the tools needed. There was some
concern about the workload required to generate the contents for the simulations, and two teachers pulled out
of the project once they realized the research and work needed. Others joined the project because they could
see the benefits to their subject and to their students in learning through online simulations. One teacher
questioned the ‘basic’ skills being taught, and whether we should focus on high-level thinking and learning
instead. This was countered by others who recognized that core skills were actually needed by students going
into their placements. There was also interest from local hotels in using some of the scenarios in their own
training for new front line staff in core operations.

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