Paul Chávez, University Professor and Specialist in Hotel and Tourism Business Management at the Universidad Peruana de Ciencias Aplicadas, UPC (Lima, Peru) shares his user experience with Cesim Hospitality, our hotel and restaurant management simulation, in his courses.
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Explore the Cesim Hospitality student interface.
It's been a tremendous success. I always emphasize this to my students, so that more people enroll in the workshops. Because you don't easily find such a beautiful platform, so interactive, easy to use, and at hand. Because the students have access to it on their tablets and laptops. And that, in turn, complements very well the management courses of the same program. Because the students graduate with a wealth of management knowledge and in a very short time, statistics show, they become managers or, in any case, department heads. And the cases I cover are mostly about accommodation, but at some point I've also used the case plus restaurant. There are cases that involve accommodation plus restaurant. For example, I was surprised, analyzing —because the platform is very broad and you have to dedicate time to analyze every detail, the decisions that are made, and the cases that are not always the same—, I'm very pleased because this platform complements very well the course of operations of accommodation, since we see reception, and other areas as well. And, also, the metrics part, for example, the statistics, the KPIs that are used in hotel management, specifically, in revenue management. I've also taught revenue management at other universities. and I can attest that one finds those indicators in Cesim, and at a very early age. So, what am I talking about? That the students in the first semesters, because I teach the first semesters, already interact, they're already familiar with these codes, with these KPIs, with these metrics that are generally seen in the last semesters. Or even in many universities, revenue management isn't even discussed. You find that in hotels, and mostly in chain hotels, not even in any hotel. So it seems to me a great idea and it's great that you can take part in those workshops at the beginning of the career.
I've been able to learn by surveying my students, and they've told me: "Professor, I'm understanding more with you than with the course I'm taking." Or "I have friends who are taking the revenue course and they don't understand anything." On the other hand, from the Cesim platform, which is an extremely comprehensive platform, created for students to work in groups, because teams are created, and from the comfort of their homes, using their cell phones and tablets, they can interact every week. Because what I do is let them practice every week. And during the workshop, we don't actually practice anything. But what we do is share the decisions. See where they went wrong, what they did right, which group won. And the students have told me that they internalize, That is: "Professor, I learn faster with this platform than with my teacher teaching me in the classroom with exercises or with assignments that are sometimes overwhelming." So I'm happy, and my students too, they're giving me feedback that they're learning very well with the Cesim platform. It's a platform designed so that the students can make management decisions. It's as if they were already managers of a hotel or of a specific area. And that, for example, in my case, when I was a student, was unthinkable. We only took one course for 4 months and that was it.
The biggest challenge, I think, is that each case you get, which is different week to week, is unique. And many times on the platform a team would win, for example, by total revenue capture. "Professor, our Blue Group won, however, we are not the most profitable." So, we had to go deeper and tell the student that it's not just about capturing revenue, but also about capturing the best revenue through different channels. That's the concept of revenue. And it was necessary to complement: "Yes, you have a lot of income, that's fine, but you spend a lot. So, in the end, your performance is very poor. On the other hand, the other team that hasn't earned as much money in its cash registers has managed to save on very expensive operating costs. So, it has had better vision, and therefore its revenue has been more profitable." So, that was the challenge for me with them. of trying to better explain to them how the results came about, because they told me: "Professor, it's unfair, we have the best income." It's not always like that.
The positive points, as I mentioned, are that students can log in from anywhere; it never crashes; there are no errors, no lagging, there are no, let's say, you don't find errors like 1 + 1 equals 3. In other words, Cesim gives you a platform that is super interactive, very dynamic, and reliable. And students now ask you for that. They ask you to have autonomous education. You know that in the world there is already asynchronous education, that you no longer need a teacher, a schedule, or anything. The student logs in whenever they want, does their homework, and that's it. And the teacher just accompanies. So, these platforms are a reality, we need to spread the word more, I think, and I recommend it 1000%.