Faculty & Research
Computer Simulation in Hospitality Teaching, Practice, and Research
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Vol 44 No 2
By: Gary M. Thompson Ph.D. and Rohit Verma Ph.D.
Executive Summary: This paper focuses on the use of computer simulation as a tool and how it can be applied in hospitality education, practice, and research. Simulation involves the modeling of an existing real system - for example, skiers' activities at a ski resort, diners' experiences in a full-service restaurant, and guests' transactions at a hotel's front desk. Simulation models are used chiefly because it is expensive, complicated, and risky to test proposed new operating procedures in an actual hospitality operation. In contrast, simulation models allow the user to try out different strategies or alternatives, without actually implementing them in practice. This can reduce costs, since changing real systems can be expensive. Simulation, when used correctly, is a useful tool in hospitality contexts. It can be used in practice, in designing better customer-service processes, in research, in validating new theories, and it certainly belongs as part of a hospitality curriculum. Simulation is typically used for identifying the best of a number of predefined alternatives, in cases where the effects of chance make it difficult to perform other analyses.
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- Computer Simulation in Hospitality Teaching, Practice, and Research By: Gary M. Thompson Ph.D. and Rohit Verma Ph.D.
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