ADB: Three In-Room Entertainment Features Every Hotel Should Budget for in 2018

Today’s in-room entertainment technologies have evolved beyond providing pay-per-view movies in guestrooms. It now encompasses everything from live TV, video on demand, pay per view, and searchable interactive program guides, to pausing, rewinding, fast-forwarding live TV and streaming content from guests’ mobile devices to the TV. ADB, a company delivering advanced TV solutions for hotels across cable, satellite, and IPTV for more than 20 years, said it has identified the top three features every hotelier should request from their in-room entertainment provider in 2018 to meet their operational needs and guests demands.

Consider these findings:

• According to the 4th edition Egencia Business Travel and Technology Survey (2017), travelers are looking to technology to make the corporate travel journey more productive and manageable. The report shows 66 percent of business travelers want to manage their business travel on every mobile device, not just on their smartphone. Additionally, 56 percent of global respondents simply want access to business travel tools to do more on mobile in general.
• According to Hospitality Technology's 2017 Customer Engagement Technology Study, 79% of hotels plan to have a comprehensive mobile experience in place for guests by 2018; 62% plan to add or upgrade their Digital Signage platform in 2018; and 42% of guests said they want integration between their mobile phone and the in-room TV
• In its 2017 Portrait of American Travelers survey, MMGY Global reports that Millennial families – who rely on mobile technology for a do-it-yourself travel experience – are going to spend more and travel more in 2018 than all other generational segments. The study predicts that the 9.5 million households that are American Millennial families will spend 19 percent more on vacations during the next 12 months and intend to travel 35 percent more than the previous year. To support the demands of this demographic, hotels need to invest in the technologies their Millennial guests expect to use during their stays.

 

According to ADB, interactive TV content – or lack thereof – has a direct impact on guest satisfaction and loyalty. If hotels are not offering the level of in-room entertainment services that guests want – especially Millennials – they will go elsewhere.

Here are three features that ADB believes every IRE provider should offer in 2018 and beyond:

1. Screencasting – This feature enables users to “cast” their personalized programming from YouTube, Netflix, Pandora and other premium content providers onto the bigger in-room screen. When it comes to in-room entertainment, travelers would prefer to watch content that they bring with them using the room TV because most hotels have limited channels.

ADB created vuCaster (powered by Google Cast™) to make the streaming process as easy as possible. To stream content from smartphones, tablets, portable computers and other mobile devices to the TV, guests simply use the vuTyme on-screen menu to activate vuCaster. It’s not necessary for guests to enter their account credentials for Netflix, YouTube, Amazon Prime, Hulu and others. Once activated, guests launch their favorite content app on their mobile device and press the “Cast” icon, content is instantly streamed to the TV. It’s frictionless. And, when content is being viewed on the TV, it frees up guests’ mobile devices for other activities.

2. Emergency Alert Messaging – This feature will inform guests via in-room TV of on-premise threats and the specific emergency action they should take to keep them safe. Instead of sounding just an audible alarm to alert guests of an incident without knowing specifically what the emergency is, where it is, and what they need to do, tying EAM to the in-room TV will provide them with the details they need to act.

ADB is hospitality’s first IRE provider to add an Emergency Alert Messaging system to its platform, providing guests with real-time, life-saving information via the in-room TV about what is happening and what they need to do to remain safe.

3. Digital Signage – If you’ve got TVs, you can have digital signage. Providing interactive wayfinding, lists of events and hotel services can be costly, but guests expect it. If it’s not part of a hotel’s mobile app, that information must be prominently visible somewhere. Working with the hotel’s IRE provider, hoteliers can easily display relevant content via TVs that are not in use.

ABD works with hotels to turn their un-used TVs into a non-interactive content display system without processing fees or involving a third party to manage it for them. The ADB Digital Signage system is no cost; it comes with the vuTyme IRE system and no dedicated equipment is needed. It’s flexible; hoteliers can enable/disable on any given vuTyme TV. There are no dependencies; hoteliers can create their own content. It supports simple content generation; PowerPoint and images suffice.