High-tech hotels coming into their own

Holiday Inn Express Montreal Airport executive suite

By Marni Andrews

It’s getting harder to escape from work. It’s also harder to escape from play. To assist, hotels, especially the chains, are upping the ante in tech amenities.

Wyndham Hotels, for example, is installing a nifty device called the “Smart Chair” throughout its properties. The chair features pivoting tables for writing, laptop computing and eating, plus built-in power and Internet ports.

At Hyatt Place, the new Hyatt brand that spotlights style and high tech, TV-philes know that each room offers a 42-inch LG Electronics high-def LCD TV for full viewing pleasure. The Hyatt Plug Panel near the TV also allows a guest to connect a laptop, DVD player or portable media player such as an iPod to the LG screen. It’s a great way for a guest to review a PowerPoint presentation the night before they deliver it or to watch the newest YouTube video on the latest singing sensation. Hyatt Place also offers free Wi-Fi in every guestroom.

Holiday Inn Express Montreal Airport meeting room.

In-room Internet access (including an increasing emphasis on wireless) has now become a standard requirement for guests, says Cindy Warren, director of marketing, DataValet, which offers high-speed, in-room Internet and video on demand services to the hotel industry. A June 2008 lodging survey by the AHLA noted that wireless Internet access was offered in 91 per cent of properties that responded. This was up from a mere 35 per cent in 2004. And while 22 per cent of responding properties charged for Internet access in 2004, by 2008 this was down to only 16 per cent, according to the survey.

“The profile of today’s hotel guest has evolved to a much more tech-savvy guest with greater expectations. Guests travel with an increasing number of devices such as iPods or MP3 players, digital cameras, camcorders, cellphones, laptops, game consoles, etc. which need to be connected easily in the hotel room,” she says.

“The key to winning this new guest is the best combination of unique services at reasonable cost. Guests now expect basic Internet access for free. Hotels should explore leveraging their in-room Internet service as a platform to bring one-of-a-kind services to guests to increase guest loyalty and provide new sources of revenue.”

Best Buy installation at Nita Lake Lodge in Whistler, BC.

Westmont Hospitality Group, a multi-branded ownership group with 180 Canadian hotels representing brands such as Fairmont, Hilton, Westin, Hyatt, Pan Pacific, Choice, Radisson, Travelodge and Holiday Inn, understands the value of in-room electronics. John Aitken, vice-president of purchasing services, says that Westmont’s rooms contain a variety of the following electronics products: flat panel televisions ranging from 26 in. to 42 in., Bose Wave sound systems, CD clock radios, and MP3- or iPod-docking radios. In a few hotels, television port replicators allow guests to connect their media sources to the TV.

Some hotels have electronic mini bars wired to the front office to control costs associated with service and restocking. Digital thermostats and controls in the guestroom not only control temperature but can report security information about the room back to management. Aitken says that another popular electronic amenity is the digital safe, operated from a single code, key card or thumb print.

“A media device for the guest to play back their own music from an MP3 player is also a very popular trend and almost becoming an expected amenity. The traditional clock radio is clearly on the way out,” comments Aitken. “Port replicators for the playback of portable media players and computers are becoming another popular amenity. This allows the guest to connect their laptop to the television and either play back stored media or simply split screen and catch up on e-mail while watching their favourite program.”

Upgraded TVs

Tony White, sales manager for the commercial sales group of Best Buy Canada Ltd., which offers a wide assortment of electronic products for hotels, says that demand for flat panel TVs has grown tremendously, even over the last year, and has become a requirement for all sizes of properties.

“It is starting to go beyond just having a nice TV in the room. The 26-in. tube TV used to be the standard, now a 32-in. is the smallest that properties will go with and many are reaching out for 37 in. and larger,” says White. “Guests expect the same quality of entertainment they have at home or better. Hotels are answering that need with higher-end iPod clock radios and stereo systems. Consumers are bringing their entertainment with them and hotels are adding products such as LG’s remote Jack Packets that allow guests to connect their laptops and other devices to the TV.”

“Today the most popular item is upgrading the traditional analog television to a Hi-Def flat panel display that will give the hotel ultimate flexibility to adapt to some of the new technologies that have been recently developed or are on the horizon. These would be HD-broadcast television programs (still in its infancy in Canada) and/or HD movies through the various pay per view (PPV) providers,” says Aitken of Westmont Hospitality.

InnVue Inc. offers High-Definition in-room entertainment content with access to both HD movies as well as HD channels. According to InnVue president Louis Noel, a great number of Canadian hotels now have HD television and the next step is to have an HD signal to feed those TVs.

“On-demand movie solutions are still very popular as HD technology is still in its early stages in hotels as opposed to the residential market. It used to be the opposite; we used to see the newest technology in hotels before seeing it in residential,” explains Noel. “We are experiencing an increased demand for our HD in-room solution and we expect a big leap in demand in 2010. It allows a guest to have a “whatever/ whenever” feeling when watching TV and the content (live TV, on-demand TV and movies, TV shows, web video, etc.) can be personalized by each hotel.” 

The Holiday Inn Express & Suites Montreal Airport installed the InnVue HD solution in 154 guestrooms using 240 HD Samsung television sets designed specifically for the hospitality market. According to Noel, they were the first hotel in Canada equipped with the InnVue In Room entertainment solution to offer 22 HD channels.

“Our most popular in-room electronics item is definitely our HD offering. We were able to successfully develop and launch a High-Definition IPTV (Internet Protocol Television) solution at low cost. It has never been done in this way before in Canada to the best of my knowledge, but the technology is readily available,” says Alex San Gregorio, operations manager, Holiday Inn Express & Suites Montreal Airport.

“I know many new hotels in Europe have gone with an IP-based system. Some hotels in Canada claim to have HDTV when in fact they have only televisions capable of eventually showing a 1080i image if the feed ever got to the TV in the proper format. I think that most older hotels will never be able to upgrade to truly offer their guests HDTV because of legacy cabling or because of the cost of upgrading.” 
 
High-speed Internet and interactive platforms

According to Arnon Levy, Guest-Tek Interactive Entertainment CEO, his company’s OneView platform incorporates the widest range of feature sets and applications in the hospitality marketplace. Levy says that HSIA (high-speed Internet access) has been the foundation of his product line even during the recent boom in HDTV.

However, “just as once-rare amenities and services such as hair dryers, ironing boards and HSIA are now commonplace, hotels are beginning to find that traditional television and pay-per-view services are no longer meeting guests’ changing needs,” he says. “Hotel demand for interactive TV is being driven in large part by the dramatic increase in residential HDTV and Internet social networking sites. For these guests, average picture quality and lack of interactive services are no longer acceptable.”

Mitel’s vice-president of hospitality sales, David Johnson, says that the most popular application for hotels currently is the ability to deliver a converged network to the hotel. This could be a combination of applications from high-speed Internet to IP TV, room diagnostics, etc. Johnson emphasizes that a converged network will give a vendor uniqueness.

“Just selling a PBX [private branch exchange system] will not cut it anymore. If you are truly looking at the guest experience, you must offer enhanced technology,” he explains.
Last November, LG Electronics launched the Pro:Centric Interactive Platform for Advanced In-Room Connectivity. It is a standards-based application platform with a new interactive communications interface. LG claimed it was the world’s first lodging pay-per-view (PPV) compatible television to include an applications platform.

LG Electronics developed Pro:Centric as a way for hotels to deliver uniform services and features across both RF (radio frequency) and IP (Internet protocol) based networks, without the need for additional hardware such as set-top boxes. The technology also allows for portability between existing platforms such as interactive program guides, games and Internet data feeds, and applications designed to connect guests to hotel services such as room service menus, spa services and golf course scheduling.

“The introduction of Pro:Centric technology will… return the hotel room to a position of technology leadership with a multimedia platform designed to introduce interactive technologies unheard of in consumer homes,” said Richard Lewis, senior vice-president of Research and Technology with LG Electronics’ U.S. R&D subsidiary. 
 
Lighting upgrades

“Believe the meter—that’s the ultimate test,” says Paul Toris, director of business development, Power Save Solutions Inc., which has completed lighting upgrades in more than 500 restaurants and 100 hotels in Canada in the last year. He says that upgrading lighting to energy-efficient technologies can provide an immediate and significant reduction in operating costs while also improving suite appearance.

In June 2008, Power Save upgraded four properties in London, Ontario. In January of this year, Toris received the raw meter data for each property for 2008. Return on investment ranged from two months for an older, 118-room suite hotel to three months for the other three properties that included an 80-room, motel-style property, a newer, 144-room suite hotel with restaurant and meeting facilities, and a 243-room property with multiple restaurants and meeting/banquet facilities.

“It used to cost to ‘Go Green,’ now it pays,” says Toris.

Stacey Featherstone, Ontario regional sales manager for the Battery, Ventilation, Lighting Sales - Industrial Division, Panasonic Canada Inc., says that the company’s new and improved 15,000-hour lighting product line offers one-third more life than their previous product with 10,000 hours. The new lineup features a compact fluorescent light (CFL) for hoteliers that fits in a broad range of fixtures including table lamps, recessed fixtures, wall sconces and totally enclosed fixtures.

“With the economic challenges and demands on energy conversion, hoteliers are constantly seeking new ways to save,” says Featherstone. “Hotel room lighting, hallways and foyers can play a big part in this savings.”

Panasonic Canada’s KX-T7710B single line telephone integrates with the hotel’s property management system.

Telecommunications

When telecommunication service at a Bermuda hotel client went down and there were no spare parts available on the island, Williams Telecommunications flew the parts in immediately from Toronto so that local technicians were able to fix the system the same day, says Jim Williams, president and CEO of the company, which distributes telecom products from analog to VoIP to wireless broadband.

Williams says he’s seeing more and more hotels moving to cordless phones, which is a big change over the past few years. He’s also seeing an increase in Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) usage.

“There is now more enhanced technology available with VoIP. With the merging of telecommunications, hotel data networks and the Internet, features not available before can now be used,” he explains. “We have found that in spite of the economy many hotels are taking the opportunity to upgrade their phones and other technologies to distinguish themselves from other hotels.”

Panasonic Canada’s KX-T7710B single line telephone, wall-mounted version.

One of Dave Carson’s Allstream hospitality customers told him that when they were building their 500-room hotel in Niagara Falls that every system they were using crashed at some point, except their Allstream-provided telephone system, which was “rock solid.”

“Sometimes the cost savings and revenue generation available with a new system can pay for a complete system upgrade while improving guest service and operating efficiencies along the way,” says Carson, Allstream’s retail and hospitality marketing manager, who adds that Mitel has been the company’s most popular line of phone systems and sets for several years.

“In the past few years, the cost to purchase and/or upgrade has come down significantly. We have seen roughly a 30 to 40 per cent reduction in cost for similar features such as voicemail over the past five years,” he says. “At the same time, the number of features and functionalities available has increased considerably. Guests are also driving and demanding more Internet bandwidth.”

Carson says that the style and functionality of guestroom phones has advanced considerably to the point where IP phones can be integrated into energy management systems to control heating and lighting, and security, as well as to provide advanced service features such as room service and valet parking.

“One of the most sought-after features, especially for hotels seeking extended-stay guests, is the ability to assign a direct dial number to a room and to provide the guest with a card with the relevant information on check-in,” he adds.

Brian Cox, national sales and marketing manager, Panasonic Canada Inc., business telephone systems division, says his most popular product for hotels is the KX-T7710B single line telephone that integrates with the hotel’s property management system. Panasonic offers analog, digital, VoIP and wireless telephones for the hotel industry.
 
Westmont Hospitality’s Aitken says that many in-room electronic amenities, especially at the luxury level such as master control centres that are linked to the telephone and that control the opening and closing of draperies, turn lighting on and off, set do not disturb indicators and set wake-up calls, can be very capital intensive and offer little to no return on investment.

Best Buy installation at the Loden hotel in Vancouver.

Bottom line: guest comfort keeps them coming back

Access to capital in tough economic times makes it difficult for operators to justify expenses on technology. In addition most of these products are hospitality specific or have features in them that add additional production cost to the manufacture, explains Aitken, who has seen several major manufacturers exit this market segment or reduce their R&D spend on hospitality-specific products, which has a direct relationship to pricing and availability so that forecasting becomes very important.

The bottom line, however, is that when guests feel at home, they keep coming back, which is the best insurance of all against a slow economy.