The game is made to train and gauge aptitude in 2 areas, FaceBook Travel Reps, where applicants concentrate on small businesses with excellent customer service, and FaceBook Member Agents where they can build a travel empire. This game demonstrates how we recruit and train both.

Since 2002, as soon as my company www.CapeVillas.com started showing strong potential, I was thinking about making a travel management game VILLA MOGUAL, in a similar way to soccer management or tycoon styled games, we already had nice graphics http://www.capevillas.com/CTG.shtml.

In 2002, the original idea was for the game player to start with a $10,000, choose skill set’s, set up and grow their businesses, the game play idea back in 2002 is still a good place to start as it gives our would be FaceBook Travel Reps and Agents, experience in travel in general and the developments that have been made this century, which are surprisingly few.

From a tutorial perspective the main intention to really illustrate, is how our 20 new developments in travel, make becoming a Facebook Travel Rep or Agent a good career choice in the real world and also to get them fully trained in how to get the most out of all the software.

To start the game our, would be FaceBook Travel Reps and Agents allocate a percentage of turnover to research, and pick a specific technology to research first. The more advanced the technology, the more it costs to research, so in general gamers will research all the beginning technologies first, then move to the second level and so on... All be it unlocking Virtual World 1, is well worth getting to quickly as it doubles income.

Advances Tree

Links indicate new advances, which I have conceptualised, White is for the significant advances so far this century. As you can see, the game shows there are twice as many new advances as there are discovered advances, and few would argue that that is an accurate picture, save the internet in general, travel has advanced very little over the last 11 years, all be it market share has shifted towards web based companies and accommodation venues websites, particularly when it comes to choosing a location.

After our would-be FaceBook Travel Rep or Agent has set his or her allocation for research, and picked a speciality they chooses there personal skill sets, 100 points are available.

1. Web Design 10
2. Database knowledge 4
3. Creativity (original idea’s) 10
4. Sales Flair 7
5. Staff management 5
6. Administrative 5
7. Financial 7
8. Customer service 4
9. Photography and Photoshop 10
10. A Peoples Person. 8
11. Marketing 10
12. Property Management 0
13. Negotiating / Diplomacy 10
14. Resolve / Determination 10

After our, would be Travel Rep or Agents sets their character traits, they can spend their start up money on.

1. Hiring staff if necessary with different or complementary skill sets, or just go it solo for a while to save money for other advancements.
2. Choose a high street shop, office or work from home.
3. Choose an admin assistant, book keeper, accountant or deal with the finances themselves.
4. Choose various internet marketing strategies, concentrate on SEO or just pay for Google and Overture add words, or both. ( this is important as we will show the power of small specialised Google PPC campaigns, so encouraging them to use Google PPC and for that matter FaceBook PPC on their real life websites as covered in point 7)
5. Choose the counties they wish to advertise in.
6. Advertise in magazines, news papers, TV, bill boards etc......
7. Choose a cutting edge website, or go with a less expensive option.
8. Choose a specific suburb, town, city, country or continent.
9. Increase their starting portfolio of 10 villas to choose from

Like soccer management games, there will be many hidden attributes, a staff member may seem excellent from there viewable attributes, but what you cant see are some unwanted character problems, such as, laziness, sickly, problems with authority, dishonest, over ambitions. On the positive side they could however have good hidden characteristics such as, loyalty, hard worker, nice to be around, works out of office well, motivator, team player.

As mentioned, one of the main objections of the game, is to get FaceBook Travel Reps & Agents to appreciate the new travel advances, if we take the FB/CRM3 – Psychology Tests as an example, this particular advance can reveal all the negative or positive employee traits.

These “Physiological tests” however will only be available after playing the game for quite a while and by the time one gets this technology he/she may have quite a few staff members

As soon as advance FB/CRM3 –Psychology Tests, is researched, all the attributes of the worst traited staff member are shown, and you see how much money has been lost to the dreaded “Other” cost centre, as well as how many game points he/she has lost you.

I will give an example of one test I have used many times for fun. To make this fun for you, follow this link http://www.s-world.biz/FaceBook/Test and answer all the questions, on a pad, try to look at each question individually.

This test in particular would be well performed at an interview to determine whether an employ has genuine excitement for the job, or just looking to pay the rent. Question’s 3 & 4 tells you a lot, if they have a thick forest without a path; they are working until something better comes along. On the other hand an applicant describes a flower covered meadow with a large path in the middle; they will most likely be a very willing employee that sees his or her future with the company.

There will be many such tests, for the FaceBook Reps and Travel Agents to put to there virtual employees, each one unlocking one or two hidden character traits, to do so however they must go through the questions on each test and process the results for each employee. So to fully evaluating all staff takes a while, diligent Reps & Agents will spend a long time performing tests on staff and become well acquainted with the FB/CRM3 – Psychology Test and so will be ready to apply them in real life. (The more time a gamer spends looking at these tests, and other advances and business tutorials, the more points they acquire)

Money lost by negative hidden attributes, goes into the dreaded “OTHER” Account, so it’s not easy to see what’s what.

One can gauge overall performance easier by points, or points per day. The idea of having points is, to show long term growth, vs. short term gratification. For example spending money on add boards and mass marketing campaigns, will make more bookings and so money, but spending more time winning customers hearts, and making affiliate relationships, will over time create a stronger business. By analysing ones points per minute one can gauge ones long term strategies likelihood of success.

There are many more advances to research and learn, in particular the financial & CRM software. In the same way as the FB/CRM3 – Psychology Tests is introduced in a way that makes our Agents and Reps really get to know the advance, these other advances will be introduced in a similar fashion, and so making our FaceBook Travel Reps and Agents really appreciate them.

The most significant advances are Virtual World 1, with this advance our reps sales double there booking closure rating, and Give half back which see’s profit halved but clientele quadrupled.

S-World is a 3D Virtual World, that mirrors earth, showing all the accommodation and locations. FaceBook Agents and Reps and clients can walk through the location as if they were in the SIMMS’s, this will thoroughly enhance and game experience, and besides being an excellent tool in the game, it also opens the door for hundreds of sub games, Global sports leagues, Territorial battles, Building games, possibly an extension to the Simms (Where users are encouraged to map there surrounding area.)

Just about any game can be played in S-World Virtual World, the difference and hook being, they are playing a game inside an environment that exists in real life. Who would not wish to play there favourite game in there own street, or town? The connotations are huge for the gaming industry.

One point to highlight in the FaceBook Travel Tutorial Game is its not only a management game, like football manager or Zoo Tycoon its also a territory advance game, like Civilisation or Age of Empires, but instead of making an army, one can battle for market share. An attack would typically involve, making a superior website in another area, out bidding your rivals for PPC’s, trying to go directly for there suppliers, undercutting competitors prices and marketing campaign..

Whilst this approach would be more fun to some gamers in the long run it would not be as effective as one would have to set up a base in that location, which can be costly and time consuming.

Diplomacy on the other hand see's one making an alliance with a partner in the location you wish to do business in,it costs little or nothing to do, all be it earnings are shared with your partner.

For example, say the game is started in the Atlantic Seaboard in Cape Town, South Africa dealing with just luxury villa rental, every now and again clients will wish to book a safari. Making a partnership with a safari specialist will make a good source of extra cash if the client that enquired about a villa also books a safari.

Another good example is considering Cape Town is for most is a winter sun holiday, making partnerships with other suppliers of other winter holiday’s increases your chance of making bookings in say Australia, Thailand, Brazil, USA & European Skiing, should your clients from last year wish to try a new location. One of the main things we are looking to achieve from our FaceBook Travel Reps and Agents is that they cultivate repeat business, and developing relationships for life.

Each time a guests vacation is finished, they give a rating simply, “Could try harder”, “I had a great Time” or “I felt like a VIP”, these ratings are tallied and effect the FaceBook Travel Reps & Agents customer service ranking, which effects gamers significantly after the Travel Service ratings advance is unlocked.

NOTE: To really maximise supplier partnerships, gamers will attempt to make reciprocal arrangements, where the new partners send their clients to the FaceBook Travel Reps and Agents as well.

The above affiliate partnership process, whist one of the most effective ways to win the game at the beginning, becomes less advantageous when the advance in marketing technology Free websites opens up, this technology instantly reveal’s partners across the globe, and web site development costs are free.

In this example what we are trying to accomplish, is get our FaceBook Travel Agent to really appreciate the Free Websites technology, having respected the amount of time it takes them to develop partnerships in the game and how much extra money it made. At the same time teaching them how to use the website building engine, which builds amazing looking well researched comprehensive travel websites in areas our reps wish to represent, which can be used in real life.

And to some points on game play.

1. If the rep does not have good personal admin and financial attributes, they will see the dreaded expense column “Other” increase rather quickly.
2. In the new age of the internet, normal print media is not as effective a marketing method as PPC, until the Free Branded Travel Magazines advance is available.
3. From the beginning having an excellent website and images is essential to attract customers.
4. Good targeted PPC Campaigns make good ROI (Return on Investment)
5. Shops are a waist of money especially at first.
6. Sales staff who excel, may, leave and start rival business if they are not nurtured into partnerships or financially incentivised, profit share, increased commission, director title...
7. Trying to sue anyone is often a waist of time, expensive and time consuming.
8. If our FaceBook Travel Agent does not have good warm and friendly characteristics, they need to hire someone that does or the company looses repeat business.
9. Stock is king, the more stock, the better chance of negotiating lower rates and the client has a better chance of the finding his dream villa.
10. If one does not have +5 in sales flair and negotiating, it’s much harder to win.
11. Developing higher discounts (STO’s) from suppliers is a good way to improve profitability.
12. Getting exclusive stock so our FaceBook Travel Reps and Agents can affiliate market to travel companies around the world is an excellent way to improve, but mind, property management is not to be taken lightly, outsourcing is often the best route.
13. One overall factor to win the game is customer service, time spent with clients, when they arrive, during there stay and on departure, then after they have gone home. It will be a factor that can be easy to work out, but time consuming, until the CRM advance FB/CRM2 – Client Gifts is available, this advance doubles chances of a client returning.

Well that’s some of the basics of the game play, in a fun environment we start to teach our Reps & Agents good habits in travel, and in business in general, whilst making them really appreciate and get to know, use, then master the FaceBook Travel software & advances.

I’d like to go back to a moment of inspiration, on my birthday the 2nd August 2008, I woke up with the idea of how to turn the game into a real life competition, a global competition. By giving the top 8 or so winners in different locations there own travel franchise and a $100,000 start up kitty, then follow the progress via a TV reality Show, with expert business men like Sir Richard Branson helping one contestant each, advising and teaching, the companies would all do well due to the extra exposure, and so more people would try the game.

Unfortunately in practice, it was unrealistic, I cant exactly remember if it was one person per country or continent, either or, giving one person, the money and training to start up a internet travel agency in such a large area was not going to work, who would look after and greet the clients? It would need a team of people and a lot more start up funding. So until I started applying various S-World plans to Social Networking in June 2011, this idea was put on ice.

Now however within a social networking environment, it comes full circle, instead of looking for one good gamer/rep per country, we can look for hundreds and thousands, and due to the advances, there is no need to offer start up money, training, offices...... no costs at all really, the FaceBook Travel Rep or Agent, being quite happy with their commission, which would be in the region of 5 times what a normal Travel Agent would earn.

At the end of the game, FaceBook Travel Agents and Reps will be well trained in what it takes to make it in the travel businesses and have a good grounding of business in general. Plus they will be experts at using our systems, technology and advances.

They will see how easy it is with our advances, to create a real business for themselves. Those that wish to, can apply for FaceBook Travel Agent or Rep positions.

If one passes the interview, one simply starts the game again but in real life with as many technical advances as are currently developed, enquiries will come to them from real life people and companies, and they get to the job of converting enquiries into bookings and treating clients like kings, but unlike the game, now when ever convert an enquiry (make a booking), they get real money into there a real bank account.

Lastly and getting back to the TV reality show, now through social networking and FaceBook Travel Reps & Agents there is a good opportunity to launch an interesting game show, the same as before, but the FaceBook Travel Agent can work with FaceBook reps across the globe, so solving the service problem. “Who wants to be a S-World Billionaire” would be a fun title following different 16 FB agents, all aided by a prominent business men or celebrity, in a ongoing competition to make money and please the customer. To add to the fun each will represent a different region as mapped out here 16 Regions Map.

The additional interest and coverage from such a TV show will highlight too many, the opportunities and advantages of working not only for FaceBook Travel, but also the many other industries, S-World and the advances can be adapted to.

Having highlighted the competition between these 16, it will make the general scoreboard of all FaceBook Agents & Reps more significant, a general scoreboard of all agents and reps will be available, not only does this turn there now real life business back into a game of sorts, it also makes a perfect meeting forum, for Reps and Agents to network across the globe when they have clients going to areas they do not know.