THE PENNSYLVANIA STATE UNIVERSITY

School of Hotel, Restaurant and Recreation Management

HR&IM 350.2

Decision Models in the Hospitality Industry

Facilitator: Carolyn U. Lambert

229 Mateer Building

Phone: 863-0022

e-mail: cul@psu.edu

Office Hours: Tues and Thurs. ; 12:00-1:30 PM and by appt.

Web page: http://www.personal.psu.edu/faculty/c/u/cul/hrim350/hr350intro.htm

Introduction

Hospitality managers must be able to interact with guests and employees, supervise the work within their department or operation and achieve established financial goals. All of these responsibilities require that the manager solve problems, make decisions and defend their decisions. This course offers an opportunity to apply analytical techniques and computer-based information systems to management functions in the hospitality industry. The course focuses on the application of modeling theory for problem-solving and decision-making in the hospitality industry.

Specifically, on completion of this course, the student should be able to:

1. identify problems in the hospitality industry and recommend analytical methods to solve them.

2. discuss the rationale for application of decision models.

3. apply analytical methods to specific problems.

4. using decision-making, derive a solution, and write a rationale for the decision.

Course Materials

A. Text: Davis, Aquilano, and Chase, Fundamentals of Operations Management, McGraw-Hill Co.

B. Calculator

C. 3½” computer disks