The My Hotel tab is where your hotel becomes yours. You'll spend significant time here in the first 2–3 periods, then return only occasionally once your hotel is dialed in.
There are five sub-tabs across the top: Info, Amenities, Loyalty, Channels, Marketing.
Concept primer: why this tab matters
Two hotels can charge the same price per night and get very different demand. Why? Because guests don't just compare prices — they compare the whole package:
- Does this hotel have a pool? A spa? A fitness center? → Amenities
- Will I earn points I can use later? → Loyalty
- Can I even find this hotel on Booking.com / Expedia / through my company travel agent? → Channels
- Have I heard of this hotel? Is it trending right now? → Marketing
- Does the place feel well-run? → Service score (driven by your amenity mix and your brand affiliation)
Each lever you pull in My Hotel shapes the "package" guests are comparing. Stronger package = more demand at any given price. The exact magnitude of the effect is hidden from you on purpose — figuring it out through experimentation is part of the simulation.
3.1 Info — your hotel's identity at a glance
The Info sub-tab is your hotel's profile page. It's mostly read-only — a place to confirm who you are and how much you have to spend.
The Info tab. Identity on top, financial summary below.
What's shown:
| Field | What it tells you |
|---|---|
| Hotel name | Editable — click ✏️ to rename your hotel |
| Hotel type | Read-only — set by your professor (Luxury / Upscale / Midscale / Budget) |
| Rooms | Standard count + Premium count |
| Cash balance | Your operating cash — pays day-to-day costs |
| Accumulated Weekly Budget | Extra cash drip-fed from operations, available to invest |
| Total Available to Spend | The sum — your full spending power right now |
| Total Amenity Investment | How much CapEx you've sunk into amenities so far |
No decisions are made here. The Info tab is a dashboard, not a control panel. The "decisions" that shape your hotel happen on the other four sub-tabs (Amenities, Loyalty, Channels, Marketing).
💡 Service score and reputation aren't directly editable from any tab. They're outcomes of decisions you make elsewhere — primarily through Amenities and Loyalty. See Chapter 10 for how they're built.
3.2 Amenities — the physical product
Amenities are the things your guests can use: a pool, a spa, a restaurant, a fitness center, a business center, a kids' club, etc. Each amenity is grouped into a category, and each category has a ladder of tiers:
F&B: None → Café → Restaurant → Restaurant + Bar → Fine Dining
Spa: None → Basic Spa → Full Wellness Center
Pool: None → Outdoor Pool → Rooftop Pool with Bar
Amenities categories with current tier highlighted.
Investing vs operating
Amenities come with two kinds of cost:
| What it is | When you pay it | |
|---|---|---|
| CapEx (capital expenditure) | One-time cost to install or upgrade | Once, at the moment you commit |
| OpEx (operating expenditure) | Ongoing monthly cost to run | Every period the amenity is active |
The Amenities tab shows you both before you commit.
⚠️ Money you spend here comes out of your investment cash pool, not your operating cash. Marketing and channel costs come from operating cash. Don't confuse the two.
Upgrading is cleaner than installing
The simulator handles upgrades for you: when you upgrade a Basic Spa to a Full Wellness Center, the Basic Spa keeps producing revenue right up until the Wellness Center comes online next period. There's no "gap month" where you lose spa revenue.
When you should invest
Amenities are most useful when they match what your guest mix wants. A business hotel doesn't need a kids' club. A resort needs a pool. Check the Demand Factors panel (you'll learn about it from your results) for clues about what your current guests value.
3.3 Loyalty — joining a brand or staying independent
Loyalty has three columns:
Three loyalty paths: independent, your own program, or a major brand.
| Column | What it is |
|---|---|
| Independent | No program. Maximum flexibility, lowest fixed cost, but no loyalty-driven repeat demand. |
| Own program | You build your own. Moderate cost, slow build-up, you keep all the upside. |
| Major brand | You franchise with a well-known brand. High monthly fee, but you tap into their entire global loyalty membership base from day one. |
Brand changes are not free — there's a switching cost both into a brand (joining fee) and out of one (penalty). Pick carefully.
💡 Loyalty pays off over time, not instantly. Don't expect your first month with a new brand to be transformative. The advantage compounds over several periods.
3.4 Channels — where you sell
Your rooms have to be visible somewhere for guests to book them. The Channels tab shows you all the distribution channels available in your simulation, split into:
- Active — channels you're selling on right now
- Available — channels you could activate
Active list on top, available list below. Direct is always on.
Direct is free and always on
Your own website ("Direct" channel) is always active and never costs commission. Treat it as your home base.
Adding OTAs gets you visibility, but...
Activating Booking.com or Expedia puts you in front of millions of guests — but every booking through that channel takes a commission cut. You're trading margin for volume.
There's another subtlety: each additional channel you activate gives you less extra visibility than the last one. The second OTA helps a lot. The fourth one barely moves the needle. The first OTA, on the other hand, often pays for itself.
This is a "diminishing returns" curve. You can see it on the channel cards — each one has a "visibility lift" badge that shows how much it would add to your visibility if activated, given everything else you have on.
Commission tiers
Channels often have commission rates that depend on volume. The "Standard" tier is what you pay until your monthly booking volume on that channel crosses a threshold; after that you pay the "Premium" (lower) rate. The tab shows you both rates and the threshold.
3.5 Marketing — buzz and baseline
The Marketing tab is the most underused part of My Hotel for first-time players. It shouldn't be.
Campaigns with their categories: Buzz vs Baseline, ongoing vs one-shot.
Concept: Buzz vs Baseline
Marketing campaigns fall into two big buckets:
| Bucket | What it does | When the effect arrives |
|---|---|---|
| Buzz | Short-term spike in demand or visibility — promo codes, flash sales, influencer pushes | This month or next |
| Baseline | Long-term brand-building — corporate sponsorships, magazine features, sustainability certifications | Slowly, over many months — but it sticks |
A healthy marketing plan mixes both. Buzz handles immediate booking gaps; Baseline grows the floor under your hotel's demand permanently.
There's also a distinction between ongoing campaigns (paid for monthly while active) and one-shot campaigns (single payment, single boost).
The expandable explainer at the top of the Marketing tab walks through the buckets in more detail.
Activating a campaign
Click Activate. You'll get a confirmation modal that summarizes:
- Total cost (one-time + recurring)
- Which bucket it belongs to
- When the effect kicks in
Every campaign activation goes through a confirmation step. Read it before clicking Yes.
⚠️ Campaign costs come from your operating cash, not investment cash. They reduce your operating profit each period.
When you're done
When you've adjusted everything you want on the My Hotel tab, click Save on each sub-tab you changed. Then go to the Decisions tab — you're ready to start thinking about prices.
Next
→ Chapter 4: Reading the Market (Decisions tab — Position, Forecast, Market Intel)