Quadriga Blog How hoteliers can benefit from the digital revolution

I have some exciting news – two hotels in the UK, Doubletree by Hilton, Bristol South, Cadbury House and Ramada Encore London West – have become the first to install our new communications portal, Sensiq.

Rather than just blowing our own trumpet, I asked the hotels’ general managers for their thoughts:

Mark Hands, group general manager at Doubletree by Hilton Cadbury House, says: “What differentiates us from our competitors is the attention to the detail and added benefits we give our guests. As the premier hotel in the region, we aim to give our guests a unique experience when they stay with us, and Sensiq enables us to offer a much more personalised internet and TV service. We’re also keen to capitalise on the unique promotional tools within the portal to encourage guests to use the on-site spa and leisure club facilities, which will help drive additional revenues.”

Ronald Little, general manager at the Ramada Encore London West, adds: “Guests are used to having the latest technology at their fingertips at home and in the office, and quite rightly expect hotels to keep pace. Sensiq offers them a huge selection of content and a highly intuitive browser-based interface to enable them to quickly and easily access the information and entertainment they are looking for. All in all, it really has ‘wow’ factor.”

It’s a pleasure to work in partnership with these hotels on the very first Sensiq installations, and I look forward to working together with them into the future.

Last month I had a very interesting chat with Adam Kirby, associate editor at Hotels Magazine. We mainly discussed the state of the industry and the issues effecting hotels both in Europe and the United States.   

We discussed some of the main challenges facing hotels in keeping up with guest’s technology expectations and some possible solutions for these:

• Can hotels really deliver a ‘home from home’ experience?

With the ever-increasing speed of technology change – and the subsequent costs incurred to respond to these changes – is it realistic for hotels to achieve the ‘home from home’ guest experience? Hotels have always wanted to be better than home and to respond to evolving guest expectations and behavior, but can they afford to update their in-room technology on an on-going basis – especially considering the current economic conditions?

• How do hotels meet the expectation of free internet?

Laptop and broadband access is a must-have for business travellers and there is a growing expectation that basic internet access should be for free.  Hoteliers need to consider investing in fibre networks or optimise their current lines and achieve better bandwidth management.

• Technology that works

Guests want to have a wider choice of more relevant content, including access to HD entertainment and an intuitive and easy way of accessing it.  Hotels are keen to deliver this, but they need to feel confident that the technology works and is robust and reliable.

We are working with our customers to try to address these challenges. Above all, hoteliers need to feel confident that their supplier is taking care of their investment and understands their business needs and objectives.  It isn’t about providing the latest ‘wow’ technology – it’s about understanding how to use technology to enable hotels to deliver a differentiated guest experience in a manner that makes commercial sense.

If you have a spare five minutes I would recommend looking at Adam’s blog, he raises some really interesting points.

We’ve just released details of the most watched films and listened to albums of 2009 in 200,000 hotel rooms across Europe, and it makes for interesting reading…

The top ten watched movies through Quadriga’s Genesis internet and entertainment platform in 2009 were:

1. Madagascar Escape 2 Africa
2. Quantum of Solace
3. Angels & Demons
4. Yes Man
5. Bolt
6. The Hangover
7. Tropic Thunder
8. Monsters Vs. Aliens
9. Kung Fu Panda
10. Bride Wars

And the top ten listened to audio albums through Quadriga’s Genesis platform in 2009 were:

1. Beyonce, I Am Sasha Fierce
2. Kings of Leon, Only By The Night
3. Mariah Carey, The Ballads
4. Radio 1’s Live Lounge
5. Pink, Funhouse
6. Michael Jackson, Dangerous
7. Roxette, 20 Greatest Songs
8. Coldplay, Parachutes
9. R&B Love Songs 2008
10. 100 Piano Classics

Comedy and animation certainly seem to be the overriding criteria for business travellers when they choose a film, with action thrillers coming a close second. When it comes to music, the divas are leading the way with a bit of rock thrown in for good measure.

I’m not much of a cartoon fan myself to be honest, but Quantum of Solace tops the list of my favourite films of 2009, alongside Star Trek.

Source: www.wired.com

I have discussed before now how internet access is considered to be the new fourth utility. And to keep up with consumer lifestyles – the need to be always available and access what they want, when they want it, at a click of a button – airlines have begun offering internet services to their customers. Oman Air is the next to do this, from this month it will offer in-flight web access to its customers.

As a consumer, I can look at this from two different perspectives:

As a frequent flyer I travel a lot, for both work and pleasure. And what I enjoy about flying is the ability to switch off. No one can contact you, leaving you to sit back and relax to enjoy a few hours’ peace. On the other hand I am also a businessman and I know those few hours in the air can really eat into a working day. This new development will allow me to carry on working even when I am 30,000 feet up in the clouds.

It is encouraging to see airlines responding to the changing demands that consumers are making with regard to technology – hotels have been doing this for years. However, it will be interesting to see, as the market matures, how airlines cope with the challenges that hotels have historically faced with the implementation of internet services: bandwidth availability, the ‘paid-for or free internet access’ debate, managing varying levels of demand and the level of investment required to support high usage. Only time will tell.

Source: www.i.gizmodo.com

Even weeks of speculation surrounding Apple’s new iPad didn’t ruin the feverish excitement when Steve Jobs finally unveiled it last week. What first struck me is how thin and light it is, at only 0.5 inches thick and weighing just 1.5lbs – an ideal new portable gadget for business travellers. 

Some analysts claim it’s nothing more than a larger version of the iPhone. That aside, the fact that it converges web, email, music, watching videos, playing games, manipulating pictures and reading e-books via a beautifully designed touch screen shows how extraordinary this device is.

It’s clearly very fast, easy for the user to hold and manoeuvre between the different applications and is definitely affordable.  Apple quickly made its mark on the mobile phone industry, selling 41 million iPhone handsets in just three years, so it’ll be fascinating to see how the iPad fairs in a very competitive tablet market. 

I don’t think it’ll be too long before we see business travellers turning up at hotels demanding WiFi and 3G support for this impressive gadget.  Congratulations Apple, this is a really inspiring piece of technology and I personally can’t wait until I can buy one in the shops.

The recession proved massively challenging for hoteliers last year as they struggled to secure occupancy numbers to survive this turbulent time.  Now we’ve left this annus horribilis, are we starting to see the green shoots of recovery in 2010?

I think it’s a little too early to be talking about a rapid worldwide recovery but, if recent figures from Deloitte on London’s boost in bookings in November 2009 are anything to go by, then hopefully confidence is returning to the hotel industry.  But, many regions, particularly in Eastern Europe are still seeing a decrease in occupancy, so we aren’t out of the woods yet.

There will definitely be business out there this year, we just have to accept that it’s limited.  Hotels’ commitment to capital investment is understandably harder when funds are restricted and hotel managers now need to feel even more confident of a return on their investment.  But, at the same time, investing wisely in new technology and services for guests is critical to keeping the guest experience fresh and appealing.

Providing guests with a range of broadband internet options should make financial sense for hotel managers.  However, it has to be robust and reliable and hotels need to know that they can generate revenue, but also offer their guests value for money. 

This year hotels need to take advantage of recent advances in digital TV entertainment and broadband internet to differentiate their offering and make sound investments that deliver a positive return in order to boost occupancy numbers.  I really believe that those hotels who work closely with their partners on using technology to differentiate their brand will see the fruits of their labour in 2010.

You may remember us unveiling our next generation technology concept at HTNG Lisbon, back in October. We’ve been busy talking to current customers, other hoteliers and industry analysts in the meantime, and their feedback has been hugely positive. We’re also seeing more column inches devoted to the trend towards more internet content being delivered through the television.

Today, we’re formally launching our new guest communications portal, named Sensiq. You can find a video and lots of information about it over at the Quadriga website.

Our first two Sensiq hotels are up and running in the UK, with more being rolled out in other European territories in the New Year. If you’re interested in discussing the portal and its potential to transform the guest experience, do feel free to contact me directly at marc.budie@quadriga.com.

An interesting piece of research caught my eye last week which revealed that almost two-thirds of British travellers want to use their hotel room TV to access local information including weather updates, tourist attractions, restaurants and bars.

This is exactly consistent with the feedback we’re getting from hoteliers. Their guests expect their in-room TV to deliver more than a selection of movies and TV shows, and an internet-based system – with an intuitive, familiar interface – is the logical means of providing the additional content.

Yet, the article fails to point out the potential opportunities of such a system for hoteliers, in terms of the financial benefits of having increased guest satisfaction and greater loyalty and the creation of new potential commercial opportunities, where the TV can be used to promote and sell hotel facilities and services and drive business objectives.

I’d argue, therefore, that revolutionising the content delivered to travellers is just as important to hoteliers themselves.

Source: www.itechnews.net

According to a recent BBC article, by 2015 more than 12 billion devices will be capable of connecting to 500 billion hours of TV and video content – pretty astounding figures.

But what really struck a chord with me in the article is the comment made by Eric Kim, the digital home group boss at Intel, who said:

“Don’t make my TV act like a PC. This is what we hear consistently from the consumer.” 

Although I agree with Eric that the television will never become a true PC, it will however be able to deliver more and more internet-based content, almost like an enhanced digital Teletext service. We are slowly seeing TV vendors adding internet browsing capabilities to their television sets: some are opting for Java, others the Yahoo framework and some are using CHTML.

The issue that needs addressing is how to provide users with access to internet-based  content via the TV – which they would typically access via a PC, in an easy and intuitive way, so they can enjoy a relaxed TV viewing experience. To date Teletext has been successful because it is clear, simple and fast – the technology is there, it just needs to be utilised.

Eric Huggers, director of the BBC’s Future Media and Technology, sums up the future of TV perfectly in the same piece: “Think of TV as an opportunity to give consumers a gateway to infinite choice.”

This week, while on my travels, I was fortunate enough to stay in a luxury hotel room where I could experience and fully appreciate the Philips Aurea TV. (Click on the link to see the very latest model from Philips).

Usually when I stay in hotels, I spend most of my time battling through emails. But, this week I took a break and decided to sit back, relax and view one of the latest blockbusters on the Aurea – and am very pleased I did. I became fully immersed in the images on the screen, and the soft colours and lighting really created a relaxing atmosphere in my room.

Without sounding corny, the sound and picture quality was just like being at the cinema – crisp, sharp and clear.  Hotels who decide to install the Aurea into their rooms will certainly enhance their guests’ overall experience.  This TV is also very consistent with the type of guest experience we will offer with our next generation technology.    

It was a thoroughly entertaining experience and really perked me up after a busy day in the office.  I’ll definitely be putting the Aurea on my Christmas list.