Peninsula Hotels Uses In-Room Tablets to Personalize Guest Experience
Established in 1928, The Peninsula Hotels group operates prestigious luxury properties in 10 major cities. These cities include its flagship location in Hong Kong, plus Shanghai, Tokyo, Beijing, New York, Chicago, Beverly Hills, Bangkok, Manila, and Paris with a London location currently under development. Since its inception, Peninsula has worked very hard to ensure that its name is synonymous with luxurious comfort and impeccable service. To help accomplish this, each Peninsula Hotel is uniquely designed with the objective of incorporating the traditional grace and elegance of its Hong Kong and Shanghai hotels' with the relevant local culture, style and history. It is important to the company that a stay in any Peninsula Hotel forms an important part of the guest’s experience of visiting that particular country, and that is often achieved through references to local architecture and artwork as well as the hotel's ambience.
However, the luxury hotel industry is extremely competitive and has been for decades. For example, every luxury hotel offers room, concierge, spa and laundry services to accommodate every guest’s needs. Our guests continue to choose Peninsula Hotels because we challenge our executives to deliver high-quality services and amenities, and we need to deliver these services to remain ahead of our competition. It is especially important in cities such as Hong Kong, where competition is fierce. New technologies, in particular, are great vehicles we use to increase guest satisfaction and offer guest amenities that set us apart from the competition.
Peninsula Hotels is well aware that we live in a mobile-first world and we have implemented technology to address that fact. For instance, we saw firsthand that more guests were using their phones to check in. This led us to the decision to purchase and deploy in-room tablets, as our guests were familiar with their use. And we knew we could use tablets to personalize our guests’ experiences and better understand guest preferences. For example, guests could use the in-room tablets to order dinner or easily checkout.
While it is easy to purchase mobile tablets and build customized apps, it’s much more difficult to manage and secure those devices. Our devices required ongoing management and remote management from a central console, and our tablets were only to be used for hotel-specific purposes. Without centralized management control, we realized that deploying tablets would be extremely difficult. It became clear that Peninsula Hotels needed to find a fully developed EMM solution to help us manage our devices. After a careful review, we selected SOTI and its MobiControl product suite. SOTI MobiControl provided our R&T department with seamless, centralized control over deployment, software upgrades, device tracking and lockdown.
In particular, it was very important that our in-room tablets worked in “kiosk” mode, so that guests could not exit the application. This full screen effect was particularly compelling because it strengthened our security, monitoring and deployment. SOTI was the only EMM vendor that offered this full-screen feature.
Also, as the hotel added new mobile devices, every device had to be secured to protect customer and hotel data. Security was a top priority for us. We needed to protect our data and our guests’ data and having a mobility management solution with built-in security measures was crucial in securely managing hundreds or thousands of tablets. SOTI MobiControl's advanced security features gave our business full control over who is using our mobile devices and how they are using them. They ensure that all data on the device, or moving between the device and our company servers remains private and secure.
However, the luxury hotel industry is extremely competitive and has been for decades. For example, every luxury hotel offers room, concierge, spa and laundry services to accommodate every guest’s needs. Our guests continue to choose Peninsula Hotels because we challenge our executives to deliver high-quality services and amenities, and we need to deliver these services to remain ahead of our competition. It is especially important in cities such as Hong Kong, where competition is fierce. New technologies, in particular, are great vehicles we use to increase guest satisfaction and offer guest amenities that set us apart from the competition.
Peninsula Hotels is well aware that we live in a mobile-first world and we have implemented technology to address that fact. For instance, we saw firsthand that more guests were using their phones to check in. This led us to the decision to purchase and deploy in-room tablets, as our guests were familiar with their use. And we knew we could use tablets to personalize our guests’ experiences and better understand guest preferences. For example, guests could use the in-room tablets to order dinner or easily checkout.
While it is easy to purchase mobile tablets and build customized apps, it’s much more difficult to manage and secure those devices. Our devices required ongoing management and remote management from a central console, and our tablets were only to be used for hotel-specific purposes. Without centralized management control, we realized that deploying tablets would be extremely difficult. It became clear that Peninsula Hotels needed to find a fully developed EMM solution to help us manage our devices. After a careful review, we selected SOTI and its MobiControl product suite. SOTI MobiControl provided our R&T department with seamless, centralized control over deployment, software upgrades, device tracking and lockdown.
In particular, it was very important that our in-room tablets worked in “kiosk” mode, so that guests could not exit the application. This full screen effect was particularly compelling because it strengthened our security, monitoring and deployment. SOTI was the only EMM vendor that offered this full-screen feature.
Also, as the hotel added new mobile devices, every device had to be secured to protect customer and hotel data. Security was a top priority for us. We needed to protect our data and our guests’ data and having a mobility management solution with built-in security measures was crucial in securely managing hundreds or thousands of tablets. SOTI MobiControl's advanced security features gave our business full control over who is using our mobile devices and how they are using them. They ensure that all data on the device, or moving between the device and our company servers remains private and secure.