Canad Inns gets pay per view TV tailored for its child-themed rooms

WINNIPEG, MB—Canad Inns calls its 10 hotels “destination centres”, and they can feature kids rooms with space and under-the-sea themes, splasher waterslides, mulitiple food and beverage outlets, or dinner theatre.  Their business is largely family-oriented, especially on the weekends.

When choosing a company to provide in-room movies, “we wanted quite a bit of family and G-rated movies,” says Lorne Perrin, vice president sales/marketing and standards for the Manitoba chain. “InnVue has that, and they work to keep the selection current.”

The kids’ theme rooms are self-contained with a sliding door to the parents’ room.  The kid have their own bunk beds, televisions, gaming units and music.  There are murals on the walls depicting themes such as space or under-the-sea.  “It’s an adventure when they stay with us,” Perrin says.

The other reason Canad Inns chose InnVue is that the company could accommodate properties with less than 100 rooms — the cutoff for many providers.  Canad Inns has 10 venues, seven in the City of Winnipeg, rural properties in Portage La Prairie and Brandon, MB, plus one in Grand Forks, North Dakota, a two and a quarter hour drive south of Winnipeg.  The Canada Select 3 and 4 star-rated properties range in size from 36 guest rooms to 201.  The company has also owned and managed the 263-room Radisson Hotel Winnipeg for the past year.

“We just starting [with InnVue] on August 2 of last year, and finished phasing in a couple of last properties in December.  We have eight properties on InnVue, and are finish off contracts with the others.

“The feedback has been very positive.  A lot of our hotels didn’t have it before,” says Perrin, adding that usage has exceeded InnVue’s industry norm, “especially for some of the smaller properties, because of the family content.”

InnVue’s niche market is the 50 to 150-room hotel property.  

“We are a Canadian company, and we understand what the Canadian hotelier is dealing with in entertainment. We have different backgrounds and a different language.  We can deal with kids, families and couples in English and French,” explains Dakx Turcotte, vice president sales and marketing for InnVue.

Louis-Philippe Noël, InnVue’s president and founder adds that InnVue also offers bilingual tech support on a 24/7 basis.