Enhancing hospitality student learning through the use of a business simulation

This study examines hotel management students’ expectations of and satisfaction with the use of the Hotel Operations Tactics and Strategy (HOTS) simulation as a learning tool. Hospitality courses must be relevant to industry, and relevance is increasingly achieved through innovative learning methods. Computer-based simulations have been found to bridge the gap between didactically presented information and experiential learning. Two online surveys were conducted with a final sample of 104 paired responses analyzed using importance–performance analysis (IPA). Results showed that students have high expectations with regard to learning from the simulation and that IPA identifies areas on which educators should focus to develop student learning.