Welcome

You are now in charge of a hotel.

Not a fictional one — for the next several weeks, this is your hotel. You'll set its room prices every day. You'll decide which guest amenities to install. You'll pick which booking channels to sell on, which marketing campaigns to run, and whether to bid on corporate contracts that show up. At the end of every period, you'll see exactly how many rooms you sold, how much money you made, and how you stack up against your competitors.

This manual is your operating guide.

What you're playing

The simulator is a hotel revenue strategy game. You and your classmates each run a hotel in the same city, all chasing the same pool of guests. Every period (typically one month of in-game time) you submit a set of decisions. Once everyone has submitted, your professor runs the period. Demand gets allocated across hotels based on what each of you decided. You get results. You learn. You adjust. You go again.

There is no single "winning strategy." A luxury hotel in a downtown business district plays a completely different game from a budget property near the highway. What matters is:

• Understanding what kind of hotel you have
• Reading what the market is doing right now
• Making decisions that line up with both

What you control

You have decisions in five areas:

1. Pricing — what you charge per room, per day
2. Inventory — how many rooms you make available (you can hold some back)
3. Your hotel itself — what amenities you offer, which loyalty program (or brand) you affiliate with
4. Distribution — which third-party channels (OTAs, your own website, GDS) you sell through
5. Marketing — campaigns that lift awareness, boost direct bookings, or build long-term brand

You also respond to RFPs — Request-for-Proposals from corporate clients and tour operators asking for blocks of rooms at a discounted rate.

What you do NOT control

You do not set the size of your hotel. You do not pick your hotel type (luxury, midscale, budget). You do not control the city's overall demand, the events happening in town, or what your competitors are doing.

You also can't undo past decisions. Once a period is published, it's history. That's the point — revenue strategy is about making good decisions under uncertainty, and then living with them.

How a period works

Each period follows the same rhythm:

1. Period opens. You can edit your decisions for the upcoming month.
2. You make decisions. You set prices, adjust inventory, activate marketing, bid on RFPs, configure your hotel.
3. You submit. Pressing "Submit Final" tells the engine your decisions are locked in.
4. The professor runs the period. Demand is allocated, bookings are made, money changes hands.
5. Results publish. You see your KPIs, your competitors' indices, your updated cash position.
6. Next period opens. Repeat.

Some simulations use pace mode, where the period is run in several smaller passes through the month instead of one big run. In pace mode you'll see partial results mid-month, and you may get the chance to adjust your prices for the remaining days. We cover this in Chapter 7.

How long this manual is

About 13 chapters. The fastest way to use it:

• Read Chapters 1–3 before your first decision period. They cover the basics.
• Read Chapters 4–6 before you start setting prices.
• Read Chapter 7 only if your simulation uses pace mode (your professor will tell you).
• Read Chapter 8 the first time an RFP appears.
• Read Chapters 9–11 after your first published results, when the numbers will mean more to you.
• Use Chapter 13 (FAQ) as a reference whenever something is confusing.

💡 You're going to make mistakes in the first period. Everyone does. The simulator is designed to let you learn from them — your professor isn't grading the first period as harshly as the fifth.

Next

→ Chapter 2: Getting Started