Hotel chain puts virtual training game in employees' hands

Jan 16, 2009

Austin Business Journal - by Christopher Calnan ABJ Staff

Most employers discourage employees from playing video games while on the job. But earlier this month in Austin, a hotel company launched a virtual training tool for workers to learn about their job duties on a Sony PlayStationPortable.

California-based Hilton Garden Inn demonstrated the product to 700 managers attending the hotel chain’s annual conference. The approach, which was inspired by an HGI executive’s game-playing daughter, came after two years of research and development.

The 3-D game, called Ultimate Team Play, uses animated scenes with avatars in a training approach that company officials say is unprecedented in the hospitality industry. The game is designed to augment the 50 hours of in-person training most HGI workers receive before they start.

The game is built to play on a Sony Corp. (NYSE: SNY) PlayStationPortable handheld console. HGI bought 1,000 PSPs and plans to roll the game out at more than 450 hotels this year, senior manager of brand education David Kervella said.

“This is a way to make learning fun,” he said. “You don’t feel like you’re training.”

Kervella declined to disclose the cost of developing the game. But he said the 1,000 PSPs were part of the agreement with Sony.

Such training has been most popular in industries with young workforces, said Bjorn Billhardt, CEO of Enspire Learning Inc., an Austin-based developer of instructional games, simulations and electronic learning products. Technology companies and retailers have gravitated toward video training tools because that’s what workers are used to, he said.

“It allows you to learn in a more visceral way than a training manual,” Billhardt said. “There are people who respond to a learn-by-doing environment rather than a slide show or lecture.”

Businesses typically develop products to operate on personal computers instead of consoles like the PlayStation because they’re more readily available to workers, he said. About 5 percent of Enspire’s business is game console-based.

HGI’s game was developed by North Carolina-based Virtual Heroes Inc., which has produced similar tools for the military and medical schools, among others.

Virtual Heroes developed animated scenes for four different hotel positions: engineering, housekeeping, food and beverage, and front desk. Workers go through the scenes controlling the actions of the avatar, gaining points for conducting themselves properly and taking proper measures while performing everyday duties.

For example, a housekeeper must knock on the door three times before entering a room and then perform 22 separate quality checks to be sure everything is in order for the next guest. If the virtual housekeeper forgets to perform a check such as resetting the thermostat or emptying a trash basket, then the player loses points.

Video game training tools have been “cocktail conversation” in the hospitality industry for several years, said Laurence Barron, vice president and chief information officer for the American Hotel & Lodging Association. But HGI is the first that he’s heard has put it into practice.

“That’s a very groundbreaking approach,” Barron said. “A lot of hotels are going to be watching.”

Virtual Heroes game designer Steven Cattrell said about 14 employees such as artists and computer programmers worked on the game over an 18-month period. Last year, the company developed 24 such games, including one for the Kenyan government to teach users about the AIDS virus, he said.

Kervella said HGI began working on the training tool after senior vice president Adrian Kurre got the idea while watching his daughter play a video game.

“His vision became my mission,” Kervella said.

ccalnan@bizjournals.com | (512) 494-2524