HTNG Names Most Innovative Hospitality Tech
Hotel Technology Next Generation (HTNG), the membership association that unites the world’s hospitality companies and technology innovators to solve industry challenges, announced that its hotelier members awarded the 2013 “Most Innovative Hospitality Technology Award” to InnSpire for its Guest Media Streaming product. First Runner-Up title was awarded to Interel's Augmented Reality Room Control App and Second Runner-Up was awarded to iRiS Software System's Web Valet. HTNG senior officers presented the awards at the annual HTNG North American Conference in San Diego on March 6.
Hotel members selected the winners by voting for their choice from the 18 different technology entrants, whose products covered a range of hospitality technologies and systems. Many of the entries provided guest services through mobile devices and others provided entertainment services. In announcing the awards, HTNG Vice President Monika Nerger, who is CIO for Mandarin Oriental Hotel Group, commented on the difficulty of choosing from the innovations, noting that a single point separated the top two entries.
InnSpire's Guest Media Streaming product lets guests stream their movies, photos and music to the TV in their hotel room. Streaming is achieved wirelessly, natively and hassle-free through the InnSpire box. InnSpire supports iOS, Miracast and DLNA, which results in easy, setup-free streaming for guests. Guests simply click on the Stream icon on the TV in the room to activate the function. They can wirelessly connect their own iPhone, iPad, Android phone, Windows phone or similar device; then choose their content and stream. No downloads or setup are required.
The First Runner-Up technology, Interel’s Augmented Reality Room Control App, offers guests an intuitive and truly international user interface, which depicts their actual room using an augmented reality concept. The room visualization dynamically changes with the status of the controlled room elements and makes the use of descriptive text obsolete. Virtualized replicas of the physical control devices appear on the application, guests can then interact with the devices in the same way they would in the actual room. The HTML5 application is hosted on 3rd party guest applications or on the hotel landing page. Push notifications inform the guests about the status of their service requests.
The Second Runner-Up, iRiS Web Valet, is a fully responsive guest facing web solution. The high-speed multilingual web app allows guests to interact with all the hotel’s services and facilities including in-room dining, shopping for products both internally and externally and booking spa treatments. Content and operations management is controlled through the iRiS Guest Experience Platform, allowing content changes to be made instantly and enabling two-way messaging in any language.
Hotel members selected the winners by voting for their choice from the 18 different technology entrants, whose products covered a range of hospitality technologies and systems. Many of the entries provided guest services through mobile devices and others provided entertainment services. In announcing the awards, HTNG Vice President Monika Nerger, who is CIO for Mandarin Oriental Hotel Group, commented on the difficulty of choosing from the innovations, noting that a single point separated the top two entries.
InnSpire's Guest Media Streaming product lets guests stream their movies, photos and music to the TV in their hotel room. Streaming is achieved wirelessly, natively and hassle-free through the InnSpire box. InnSpire supports iOS, Miracast and DLNA, which results in easy, setup-free streaming for guests. Guests simply click on the Stream icon on the TV in the room to activate the function. They can wirelessly connect their own iPhone, iPad, Android phone, Windows phone or similar device; then choose their content and stream. No downloads or setup are required.
The First Runner-Up technology, Interel’s Augmented Reality Room Control App, offers guests an intuitive and truly international user interface, which depicts their actual room using an augmented reality concept. The room visualization dynamically changes with the status of the controlled room elements and makes the use of descriptive text obsolete. Virtualized replicas of the physical control devices appear on the application, guests can then interact with the devices in the same way they would in the actual room. The HTML5 application is hosted on 3rd party guest applications or on the hotel landing page. Push notifications inform the guests about the status of their service requests.
The Second Runner-Up, iRiS Web Valet, is a fully responsive guest facing web solution. The high-speed multilingual web app allows guests to interact with all the hotel’s services and facilities including in-room dining, shopping for products both internally and externally and booking spa treatments. Content and operations management is controlled through the iRiS Guest Experience Platform, allowing content changes to be made instantly and enabling two-way messaging in any language.