On Friday 12th June 2009, at the Amrath Grand Hotel de L’ Empereur in Maastricht an AIBS team comprising Jost Braeckelmann (International Business Berlin) and Paula Petraityte (International Business Maastricht) defeated university teams from Germany, Russia, Spain and the Netherlands to win the HOTS (Hotel Operations Tactics and Strategy) international business game.
The first round of the HOTS competition took place simultaneously in May at Anglia Ruskin Cambridge, University Zuyd Maastricht, Zaragoza Hotel Management School, Cologne University of Applied Sciences and Nizhny Novgorod State University.
The finals were in Maastricht 8th-12th June 2009. Students’ business skills were subjected to rigorous test as they wrote a strategic marketing plan for a struggling hotel, implemented their strategy against other teams in a computer simulation , then defended their strategy and performance to a panel of industry experts and academics from the hospitality sector.
The verdict of the judging panel was unanimous and the winning strategy described as exactly what an experienced hotel manager would implement in the same situation. The achievement is all the more remarkable for Jost being a first year student and one of the other teams being from a specialist School of Hotel Management.
Our team was supported throughout by Tim Froggett, Programme Leader International Business, and Allison Beaumont, researcher.
