HITEC 2009 Highlights: The Future Of Guestroom TV
By Adam Kirby, Associate Editor -- Hotels, 7/31/2009 11:00:00 PM
Anaheim, California — At last year's Hospitality Industry Technology Exposition and Conference, better known as HITEC, future-looking chatter centered around what the guestroom phone would eventually look like, if it exists at all. This year, observers were beginning to look at what will follow the traditional fee-based video-on-demand model.
Declaring the old hotel revenue stream of fee-based video on demand "dead," iBahn President Greg Hodges showed off what he believes is the future of guestroom TV. iBahn's iMedia technology is true high-speed Internet streamed over television.
This is not another version of IPTV; this is a PC in the guestroom that just happens to double as a high-definition television, with incredibly crisp streaming video—a picture so perfect that most guests would not be able to tell the difference from regular HDTV. For the first time in years, this will enable mainstream upscale and upper-upscale hotels to offer guests a technological experience better than what most have in their homes.
Unlike traditional video on demand, iMedia gives guests a virtually unlimited video library from which to choose. Even better, it sidesteps the need for digital video recorders, which are becoming commonplace in many homes, since most TV shows can be streamed for free online—or in this case, on TV.
So how are hoteliers going to recoup that revenue stream? By selling the additional bandwidth required to stream these videos. In the same way that hotels today offer free television but charge for video-on-demand content, hotels using iMedia could allow free basic Internet browsing but charge a fee for bandwidth-intensive applications, like streaming media.
iMedia will be field tested in the third quarter and is slated for a fourth quarter release.
Computer-TV integration is definitely coming, in one form or another. LodgeNet Interactive Corp. at HITEC introduced its IPTV+ offering, which integrates Apple's Mac Mini with HD IPTV, giving hoteliers the ability to customize in-room interactive experiences, including entertainment and sales and marketing information.
The solution provides access to on-demand entertainment content and programming, complete with interactive programming guide and support for Web-based entertainment.
While HITEC 2009 was a more streamlined affair, with attendance off 28% and the number and extravagance of vendor-sponsored parties down even more, there were many highlights, including these:
VingCard Elsafe
Perhaps by the end of this year, VingCard Elsafe hopes to launch a locking system that uses guest loyalty program cards as keycards, according to Rune Venas, North America president of Assa Abloy Hospitality Inc., VingCard's parent company. Few details have been released about how exactly the system will work, but Venas says the technology will allow guests to bypass front desk check-in. Rival company Saflok has been working for a couple years on a similar product called Reggie, but it has yet to achieve market penetration.
Kaba Ilco
Speaking of Saflok, the company's sister brand, Ilco, displayed one of the coolest innovations at HITEC 2009. The Ilco Powerlever is an electronic lock that eliminates the need for batteries by generating its own electricity each time the door handle is turned. It is basically a miniature turbine. It may be some time before it comes to market, though, as the return on investment is not there yet.
Microsoft
InterContinental Hotels & Resorts has begun rolling out Microsoft Surface at select properties, beginning in Atlanta and soon extending to Asia Pacific. The InterContinental versions of Surface will feature a customized wedding planner application, allowing salespeople and brides-to-be to sit around the interactive tabletop computer and digitally design the big day, right down to ballroom layout. In limited market testing, the brand claims to already have closed several wedding bookings thanks in large part to the interactive planning program.
Microsoft's Experience lounge that debuted last year at Hotel Sax Chicago is now a branded concept, having been also installed at Residence Inn Seattle Bellevue/Downtown. Microsoft is offering to customize future Experience lounges via à la carte packages.
At a session featuring numerous roundtable discussions of industry issues, the table devoted to Twitter had twice as many people—and a more captive audience—than any other. In fact, the Twitter table dwarfed even the green table. Social media in general and Twitter in particular seem to be the industry's new hot topics.
Direct comments to: adam.kirby@reedbusiness.com
No related content found.
View All Podcasts
