Marriott International Inc. is about to launch a hotel-themed online game on Facebook.
While the focus is on marketing, there is the potential such games could become a recruiting tool for the hotel industry, according to a report in the Wall Street Journal.
At ‘My Marriott Hotel’, the player (who is the manager) has to keep on top of stock and service times of the restaurant.
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"They'll find that in fact this is a very intriguing business," David Rodriguez, executive vice president for global human resources at Marriott, told the paper.
The US Army, among others, has invested in online games as a way of marketing the career as well as assessing potential recruits.
Marriott has the challenge of attracting newcomers to around 50,000 hotel positions this year, many in emerging markets such as India and China, which don't have strong hospitality-industry traditions.
The inaugural edition includes only one game, which depicts a Marriott kitchen. The player buys ingredients, such as lettuce for the hamburgers and cheese for the spaghetti, after being given an array of options in quality and price. The player also hires staff, choosing from a range of experiences and salaries, and buys stoves and kitchen utensils.
During rounds in the kitchen, players have to direct tickets to cooks and inspect food orders for quality before sending them out to customers.
Marriott says it will roll out games depicting other aspects of the hotel business and will introduce mobile-phone play in 2012.
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