Winter School at the KU: International hotel simulation in Ingolstadt

For Prof. Dr. Harald Pechlaner, holder of the Chair of Tourism and Head of the Center for Entrepreneurship at the KU, who helped to design the program as the person responsible for the module, the management simulation also followed a profound transdisciplinary teaching and learning approach in its third round: "Creative work goes beyond the boundaries of university disciplines, even beyond the temporal and spatial boundaries of the university itself." 

Students from Germany, Poland, Estonia, Italy, France, Slovakia and the United Kingdom spent the week refining their hotel ideas on campus at the Ingolstadt School of Management (WFI). Felix Hiemeyer, research associate at the KU, emphasizes that the event is one of the few formats that explicitly focus on the development of soft skills: "The focus is on intercultural communication, team leadership and creativity." Kerstin Haag, also a research associate at the KU, adds: "The teams are given the opportunity to bring innovative hotel concepts to life and try them out."

A big step for the Winter School this year was the introduction of a new platform: This year, the management simulation was digitally supported by the KU's e-learning platform ILIAS. "The teams could create their own fictitious website and communicate via the social media platform 'INGA'", explains Haag. In addition, students who were not part of the hotel teams but of the media team took part in the event as the destination management organization "Ingolstadt Insights". 

For Professor Pechlaner, the Winter School at the KU represents a combination of international academic exchange and practice-oriented education that prepares students for their future professional challenges. This is reinforced by the involvement of coaches from other universities: For René Arvola from Tallinn University of Technology, the simulation is an inspiring and challenging way to show students the effects of economic decisions using a simulation game. "Participating as a coach is also a way to keep our network alive."

Dinisa Kandasamy, a coach from the University of Birmingham, emphasizes how much she believes the Winter School promotes students' creativity: "The Winter School Simulation in Ingolstadt truly an immersive experience for students from any background. The blend of interdisciplinary design, experiential learning, and gamification supersedes conventional teaching methods, offering a unique and engaging educational experience." This is because the different cultural backgrounds and the different courses of study that the participants are taking mean that they bring different know-how to the table. This year, for example, students from the fields of tourism, transformation, management or business, data science, journalism and international relations participated. 

Accompanying the work program, which was filled with special sessions such as a trade fair at which the students presented their hotels or a fashion show designed to attract fictitious guests, a supporting program was offered that enabled the students to get to know Ingolstadt as a host city in a short time and to experience its offers in a variety of ways. "This enabled the students to understand Ingolstadt as a tourist destination as well as a living space for the local population and to explore it from different perspectives during their stay", summarizes Professor Pechlaner.