Your guests use smart technology throughout their everyday lives at home, especially when it comes to entertainment. They are accustomed to accessing TV shows and movies on-demand from popular streaming sites, to pulling up news and weather on apps, and to sharing content seamlessly from one screen to another. When they check in to a hotel for business or on vacation, they expect their hotel guest experience to at least match, if not surpass, the quality of entertainment technology they’re used to at home. When a hotel exceeds a guest’s technology expectations, the chances are higher that the guest will demonstrate hotel loyalty when booking their next trip.
Most current Smart TVs that offer the advanced features that guests are coming to expect require dedicated Ethernet, since wireless alone isn’t reliable enough. The challenge for many hoteliers is that their properties are wired with coaxial cable, and it’s expensive and in some cases impractical for hotels to rewire each guest room to offer Ethernet. It is in part for this reason that less than one in five hotels currently provide Smart TVs to guests, according to a Hospitality Technology study.
The good news is, this obstacle has largely been removed by a new Smart TV technology from Samsung. The embedded DOCSIS 3.0 cable modem built in to the new Samsung 694 Series Hospitality TVs allows all hotels, even those with coaxial cable infrastructure, to offer guests Smart TVs in their rooms.
Hotels can provide an even better experience by using a digital content management system, such as Samsung LYNK® REACH or H-Browser, which allows hotels to provide personalized content for each guest through extensive content management features.
Hotels offering Smart TVs in guest rooms can offer the following five features to enhance the guest experience:
- Personalized welcome message. When guests walk into their rooms, they’re greeted by a personalized welcome message. Beyond just their name, you can use data from previous guest stays to personalize the experience even more, serving up content or services to match their individual preferences.
- Smart widgets and apps on the television. A Smart TV set isn’t just for watching programs. Guests can access weather apps, flight information, real-time messaging and social media. This allows all guests in the room to view and access information from the same place.
- Mirroring of content from a guest’s tablet or smartphone to the television. Many guests arrive with a tablet with downloaded content that they want to watch, or they have subscriptions to popular streaming services. Instead of one person watching the tablet by themselves, this feature allows friends and family to watch their preferred content on the in-room television together.
- Better channel navigation through the Electronic Program Guide. Finding the channel you want to watch in a hotel room is always challenging. Instead of hunting for the chart showing the channels or flipping through a hundred different programs, the Electronic Program Guide on Smart TVs allows your guests to quickly navigate their channel options.
- Easy access to up-to-date information on hotel events and services. Smart TVs also allow you to better cross-promote amenities and specials. Guests can even make reservations for dinner and make a tee time right on the television. Hotels can take it a step further and personalize the information, such as offering a special spa package to a mother and daughter pair, or offering drink specials to a group of guys on a golf weekend.
Your guests’ expectations are going to continue to get higher when it comes to entertainment options as technology continues to become even more integrated into our lives. Hotels that don’t meet today’s expectations will soon find themselves so far behind in terms of guest experience that it will be very challenging, if not impossible, to catch up.
To learn more about how Samsung Smart TV platforms can help your hotel, check out our full line of hospitality TVs here.
