Game 23DE home
→ Go! Game 23DE home | 23DE Tasks and decisions | 23DE All teams with logo
Welcome to the Emerald Forest Hotel!
This is the homepage of your simulation in Karlsruhe called 23DE, February 2018. English is meant as a way of communication so the texts might not always totally correct. But do you see real big mistakes on this platform? Please tell us. All of the content of the simulation is in English. English is used for all of your communication: on websites, social media (Facebook, Instagram), events, campaigns we strongly encourage this.
Run the Emerald Forest Hotel
You all take over the Emerald Forest Hotel as a management team. You have to run your hotel, trying to do better than has been done in the past. Last year's decisions and results are available, the so called prologue, as a point of reference. The hotels are located in your own country in two fictitious cities called Amstelburg and Budano. Your city consists of eight hotels. Your direct or main competitors are the teams/hotels in your city. This platform is where you can find documentation on many elements linked to your hotel, so use it for instance the many info pages. The platform is read only to all teams. All direct communication during the simulation will be done via the Facebook group 23DE: so join as soon as possible! But you will also find the hotel and its owner on many other (social) platforms. It is an important task to get a grip on all this information and communication.
How to manage the hotel
You manage our hotel primarily by:
- Making decisions on prices and on expenses during four years;
- Explaining why and how you do things;
- Running your communications, your website and social media in a proper way;
- Live-actions during the game;
- Taking into account the competitions, real live and other things happening during the competition.
All of this is evaluated each playing year by the coaches, in assessing your creativity and entrepreneurship. These two elements, combined with your decisions, the activities of your competitors and some other elements like the demand in the market, are used to calculate the results of your hotel. You will recognize this in the occupation rate of your hotel, the profit, lots of ratios, and the complete operating review. You will also get some (limited) feedback from your coach.
Too much information
This platform contains all the information about the hotel and other elements you need to compete: you can navigate to the information needed. There just is too much, just like in real life. So only look for information needed. All blue links are clickable and will bring you to another page inside of this platform. For instance clicking on Photos and videos will jump to this page with photos and videos of the hotel. All blue links with a small arrow will open a new tab in your browser with an internet site outside of this platform: for instance hospitality trends 2017 or more hotel trends in 2016 or download the AF&CO Trendreport 2016 (will take a minute).
Use real sources and benchmarks in all of your decisions, like:
- Very interesting yearbook with loads of information: foresight and innovations in the global hotel industry Hotel Yearbook 2017.
- Hospitality report Deloitte 2015 or an interesting page as well: real statistics of hotels in Europe.
- Very interesting site with loads of information on hospitality and hotels: HTrends
- Some interesting reports, but more in depth Hotel industry reports 2017
- Local information, as your hotel is located in the country you are in, so Germany.
- An indication of costs on inventory etc. is the file estimating hotel costs. Do not focus too much on details: it does give you some indication of what costs might be. Try to be realistic, but as in reality 'how much does it cost' depend on so many things and is not easy to answer. And don't be penny-wise and pound foolish! And in all decisions skip all decimals for sure.
The navigation on top will always stay active. The search box top right-hand corner works very well if you look for any information. Just type in the most logical word. Just try: you can look for pages exactly with the name of the element your search for or for pages where this word is used (chose 'containing'). Or try from the top menu selection Information and pick your choice, for instance info pages. By now there are 3,946 pages in this platform, so if you're new, follow the steps and tasks explained below, preventing you from getting lost!
Your tasks
So what to do first? Do the tasks underneath step by step.
In time the simulation is divided into three parts:
- Tasks to be done before and in week 6;
- Tasks to be done during week 6;
- And tasks after the final.
Tasks to be done before week 6
- Task 1: Classes
Visit the kick-off with your coach and the other hotels in your city. This is essential and compulsory.
You will receive team information regarding the game:
- The team members with whom you will be the management of the hotel. The sooner you meet, the better.
- The team number of your hotel. This will look like 23DE-A01:
- So your competition is the 23rd competition in Karlsruhe, Germany so DE. Your team number for instance A01
- so your hotel is located in a city starting with letter A, which is the fictitious city of Amstelburg, B stands for Budano.
- Your hotel is hotel number 01 (out of eight hotels in your city, which are your competitors).
- You'll get a link. With this link you go to your hotels' so called Team file. This is the place where you present the new plans of your hotel. This link will look like ''https://goo.gl/L4cABC'' and is case sensitive.
This is the only link you will get: keep it private and secret! Inside this Team file, which you will be able to access via this link, you can also open your private financial information in a Team Finances spreadsheet.
The example shows what that paper you will get with this link, will look like:
With this information you get from your university which tells you your team members, you can start meeting with your team, dividing the tasks, checking out this platform etc. Make sure you have your team well organized and the tasks well divided.
- Task 2: Meet with your team members
Plan meetings with your team to make preparations and plans for who is going to do what. The teams are made randomly, so this is important. Managing a hotel is having your team and hotel well organized. So try to work together on a professional basis, but do keep everybody to his/her tasks. If a person doesn't show up or doesn't perform as required act immediately!
- Task 3: Study E-manual
Study this 23DE E-manual: here you will find what you need to read before taking any action.
If you look for information on any subject you can search with the search box top-right-hand corner: click the GO-button for a special page on the searched-for item, or use the Search button which will show all pages where the search item is mentioned. No answer found? Use the group or ask your coaches.
- Task 4: Join the Facebook group
Go to Facebook group 23DE and request to join the group. You can join with more members, or even with a (personal) hotel page in (though officially not allowed).
- Task 5: First actions
Now have a look at your Team file which is in Google Docs, via the secret link you received.
All team members can login using this link: multiple users at the same time with the same link is no problem.
- Task 6: Thinking strategic choices over
After reading, discuss your strategic plans with regard to the hotel and come to a conclusion. Have a look at the demo Team file example. Then start filling out your own Team File. Also check your Team finances sheet using the hyperlink on the first page in your Team file. You will have supporting courses in this week: but this part is mainly something you do on your own.
During week 6, the game days
On the page 23DE Tasks and decisions you can find all tasks which are to be done during the game week, day by day.
→ GO! Top of this page
