An Audio-Visual Awakening
From upscale to select-service, hotels aim to offer guests unparalleled entertainment experiences.
By Derek Gale, Associate Editor -- HOTELS Magazine, 11/1/2005
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Flat-screen, high-definition televisions. Video-on-demand and time-shifted content. Satellite radio. iPod connectivity. High-tech entertainment offerings are rapidly pervading the upscale and luxury sectors, and even mid-scale and select-service properties are upgrading. Why? “What we have at a number of hotels is people looking for products that surpass what they have at home,” says Christian Strobel, vice president, Joie de Vivre Hospitality, San Francisco. “At Hotel Vitale, we have plasma screens and iPod holders—people like to come in with their own music and have a really good audio-visual experience in the room. In Hotel Adagio, we broadened that on executive floors to have radios that allow people to plug in any MP3 player.”
“A lot of hoteliers have been looking at how to better accommodate Gen X and a lot of these mobile technologies in the hands of consumers today,” says Matt Muta, industry manager for hospitality/retail, Microsoft. “We’re seeing a lot of interest in how to integrate these (digital storage device) technologies into a property or into the in-room experience.” Like Joie de Vivre, Hilton Hotels Corp., Beverly Hills, California, offers clock-radios with connections for MP3 players. And Washington, D.C.-based Marriott International, through a partnership with LG Electronics, offers in its new Marriott guestrooms television connectivity panels into which guests can plug their various digital media devices for automatic play. This phenomenon isn’t limited to North America: In the new contemporary rooms at the InterContinental Hong Kong, for example, guests can enjoy Bose DVD/CD home entertainment sound systems with iPod docking stations, says Jean-Jacques Reibel, managing director.
“Before, technology was growing at a pace quicker than baby boomers could understand,” Strobel says. “Now people have a much more intuitive sense of how to use this stuff, which is fueling tech growth.” Tech growth is hot even in places not traditionally thought of as entertainment hubs, like guestroom bathrooms. For guests who can’t miss a minute of the news or their favorite television programming, Hotel Nikko San Francisco now offers bathroom mirrors with built-in televisions. The television screen in the VibeTV mirrors is visible only when turned on, giving a whole new meaning to saving space and hiding cords. Other properties are doing the same thing differently. In the MGM Grand’s new SKYLOFTS in Las Vegas, Sony 32-inch (81-cm) high-definition LCD flat-panel displays are built into the bathroom walls. And at Las Ventanas al Paraiso in Los Cabos, Mexico, guests can watch television poolside, thanks to Sony LocationFree TVs.
In the Hilton Technology Room at the Hilton Garden Inn LAX/El Segundo, in-room entertainment is taken to another level, with a 16 x 9 format, 70-inch (178-cm) advanced front projection screen complemented by the Lifestyle 28 Series II home entertainment system from Bose, which offers 5-channel surround sound. And for those who aren’t content to enjoy just one form of digital media at a time, the room features a Philips MiraVision mirror LCD display panel, which serves double duty as a mirror or second television.
The TVs Are Great, But What’s On?
Thanks to innovations in security and encryption from
companies like NDS and LG Electronics, their partners—Denver-based On Command Video Corp. and Sioux Falls, South Dakota-based LodgeNet Entertainment Corp., respectively—now can deliver high-definition digital television and video-on-demand (VOD) to guestrooms without supplier
concerns about protecting content. That means guests get to see over-the-air television, premium satellite channels such as ESPN HD and pay-per-view movies all in digital format.
In addition, LodgeNet offers U.S. hotels its SportsNet service, which delivers daily subscription sports programming to guest-rooms, offering NBA League Pass (professional basketball), ESPN Full Court (college basketball), ESPN GamePlan (college football), and most recently, DIRECTV’s NFL Sunday Ticket (professional football) to sports fans. Steven D. Truckenmiller, LodgeNet |senior vice president, programming and content management, says he believes such programming can help hoteliers drive revenue not only through viewing fees, but also through additional roomservice orders and minibar use.
Roger Young, general manager of the Hampton Inn & Suites Chicago Downtown, added the SportsNet service just prior to the start of the current NFL season and already has seen guests taking advantage of the NFL Sunday Ticket offering. “Guests love it,” he says. “They can continue their sports entertainment, even on the road. To bring this into the hotel room is fantastic for the business traveler or for a weekend person getting away for a wedding.” And while his is a focused-service hotel with limited food and beverage service, Young also has seen some roomservice orders for snack food come in to his catering department. “This can generate ancillary revenue depending how a property is set up,” he says.
On the movie front, Calgary, Alberta-based Guest-Tek recently announced an agreement with NBC-Universal Studios to supply first-run movies in the United States for Guest-Tek’s video-on-demand solution, Fluid. Also, in talking about VOD, Microsoft’s Muta mentions personal video recorders (PVRs, also called digital video recorders, or DVRs), traditionally a residential product. “We’re going to see crossover into hospitality from residential space,” Muta says. Joie de Vivre’s Strobel agrees. “The equivalent of Tivo in hotels—to watch whatever, whenever—should be coming pretty soon,” he says. With On Command’s Just Missed TV offering, some time-shifted content already is available, and “as other in-room entertainment providers follow our lead and secure this type of content, it will benefit the entire hospitality industry,” says Tad Walden, senior vice president of marketing and programming.
No iPod? No Problem
Satisfying guests’ visual appetites isn’t the only priority for hoteliers, as evidenced by the push for connectivity of iPods and MP3 players. But what about guests who don’t own these devices yet still want a good audio experience? In June, Chicago-based Hyatt Hotels & Resorts announced a partnership with XM Radio to provide XM satellite radio service free-of-charge in guestrooms at Hyatt hotels across the United States. That means guests will get more than 150 choices of commercial-free digital radio channels through custom-designed XM tabletop radios found in each guestroom. Another option for luxury hotels is the new Sonos Digital Music System from Santa Barbara, California-based Sonos Inc., a customizable multizone music system that’s been described as “an iPod on steroids.” Initially conceived to serve the residential market, Sonos exhibited at the HITEC conference in June and saw interest from many luxury hotel chains in using the product for suites and public spaces, says Commercial Accounts Representative David Fortson. In a suite setting, the system offers guests wireless control of music whether they are in bed, in a bath or on the balcony. For public spaces, the system makes it easy to manage music for different areas. At the Westin St. John Resort & Villas in the U.S. Virgin Islands for example, the Sonos system lets one person control playlists and manage music for two restaurants, the pool bar and the lobby, all from a central location, and distribute the audio to zone players in each location over the resort’s Ethernet network. “What we were using before was just CD players,” says Bryan Hammer, area director of IT for the Caribbean, Starwood Hotels and Resorts Worldwide. “This really was just the perfect solution. I can adjust the playlist for special events, put on softer music in the morning and play reggae at the pool bar.”
Hammer says putting the system into every guestroom at a hotel would be cost-prohibitive, but Fortson notes that other luxury operators like Mandarin Oriental are considering the system for their high-end suites, and one luxury hotel development in Canada is looking at making it the standard audio system in each room. “Given that hotels are spending up to US$1,000 on plasma televisions, we feel that Sonos is a sound investment in a luxury hotel setting,” Fortson says. “Each unit is a small computer... the product life for Sonos is much longer as we can evolve with the market without forcing the hotel to purchase additional hardware.” A typical Sonos setup for a small suite, 300-700 sq. ft., (28-65 sq. m) includes one zone player and one controller, and costs US$898; a larger suite application includes two zone players and costs US$1,199. Those prices include technical support and “obviously, if a customer were to purchase 100 units, the price would drop somewhat,” Fortson says.
Measuring The ROI
Most hoteliers seem to agree that all of this entertainment innovation is a good thing. But it’s not always easy to measure the costs of implementing the technology versus the return on investment. “We believe that some investments do not lend themselves to traditional ROI calculations,” says Robert Machen, vice president, customer-facing technology, Hilton Hotels Corp. “In particular, we believe that
reliable, innovative, easy-to-use customer-facing technology is often times a cost of entry—like other hotel fixtures. There is a growing expectation on the part of our customers that technology will be part of the overall guest experience just like a clean inviting room, a comfortable bed, or an in-room coffee-maker.” Joie de Vivre’s Strobel also believes that the technology contributes to the overall experience, but that it’s difficult to tie ROI to that. “Whenever you talk about amenities, you can’t calculate ROI—it’s very subjective,” he says. “If you talk about Starwood and W,
people say ‘I don’t get how design can impact a hotel.’ There may be [fewer] amenities than in a Westin, but a W might be able to charge more because of the atmosphere in certain places. [The design is] part of an overall parcel.”
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