GettinG in
Contributed by Juliana ShallcroSS
THE FLOW
Guests are brinGinG their own personal entertainment systems into their hotel rooms these days . Whether it be on a smartphone or a tablet , they only need high-speed Internet . And they don ’ t even need a TV – unless the hotel offers them a way to stream their content through the one in the room .
Marriott Hotels announced a partnership with streaming service Netflix in 2015 that allows guests to sign into their Netflix account through the in-room TV . When the guest checks out , their login information is automatically cleared from the system . Since then , other streaming services have popped up in hotels , powered by a handful of providers including Enseo , AppleTV and Hulu . But now hotels are shifting to enabling guests to stream to the TV directly from apps on their mobile devices .
“ The hotel customer is changing ,” says Robert Rippee , director of the University of Nevada , Las Vegas ’ Hospitality Lab . “ With that shift comes an expectation that entertainment is more closely aligned to the guest ’ s mobile device than the entertainment that ’ s in the room .”
Adds Michelle Russo , CEO and founder of HotelAVE , a hospitality asset management firm , “ Hotels customers expect , at a minimum , what they have at home . But they are also looking for experiences that are better than what they at home .”
“ Guests expect hotels to be extensions of their own homes and to have similar technology at their fingertips … TVs , sound hotel
More and More , guests are streaMing ' in-rooM entertainMent ' froM their own Mobile devices . how can hotels keep up ?
systems , adapters , Wi-Fi speed , etc .,” said Jeroen Quint , general manager at Hotel Irvine in Irvine , California , which allows guests to stream content from their devices to the TV as well as text the hotel during their stay .
CatChing up Streaming will eventually be expected by all hotel guests , says Russo ’ s colleague , Patrick McMonigle , vice president of HotelAVE , puts it simply : “ If you don ’ t have it , you ’ ll be trying to catch up .”
Providing the technology usually requires a hefty investment in infrastructure , particularly for older properties . “ Old hotels have old cabling systems that can ’ t handle the bandwidth needed for streaming ,” McMonigle says . “ That ’ s the big challenge for existing hotels . Not only do you have to pay for all the streaming equipment , you have to invest in the infrastructure .”
Another concern is bandwidth . Eric Marlo , global brand manager for Marriott
International ' s Aloft Hotels , which is piloting a service that allows guests to stream from their phones , admits that streaming services are a strain . Aloft Hotels has a higher industry standard for bandwidth at 70MB , and Marlo says that will soon be boosted to 100 MB .
“ We kind of went into this ( streaming ) space knowing that more bandwidth would be necessary , so we decided to
unlV ' s robert rippee
50 hotelsmag . com December 2016