The Clifton in Charlottesville, Va., has adopted Hotel Internet Service's GuestCast streaming platform. Through the new technology, the historic 20-room inn can provide its guests with a personalized guestroom TV experience.
The hotel, which typically attracts a 27- to 38-year-old age demographic, had offered access to cable television, but its leadership team recognized that guests now predominately favor being able to access streamed content that can be tailored to their unique interests. Following a simplified device-pairing process, guests using GuestCast can instantly access virtually any streaming service of choice due to the platform’s compatibility with thousands of mobile apps.
“Although the vast majority of guests now prefer to stream, this expectation becomes essentially universal when catering to a millennial or Gen Z demographic, so we were determined to adopt the best possible streaming experience the industry has to offer and HIS with GuestCast certainly did not disappoint our expectations,” said Phyllis Case, executive director of sales at The Clifton. “The platform not only provides easy and immediate access to the exact streaming content that each guest enjoys, but also ensures their confidence with using the system by sidestepping potential security vulnerabilities that can exist with other solutions such as smart TVs.”
The platform does not require access to streaming account information that may be at risk of theft if a guest forgets to erase usernames and passwords prior to check-out. Equipped with device isolation capabilities, GuestCast also prevents the possibility of guests streaming content to televisions located in other guestrooms. This not only protects guest privacy but also eliminates the possibility of content being maliciously transmitted to televisions in use by a separate guest party.
GuestCast comes equipped with an analytics dashboard. Using the dashboard, hoteliers can maintain a real-time and in-depth overview of streaming performance and use for each individual GuestCast device, ensuring that any issues can be addressed quickly. GuestCast’s analytics dashboard further provides hotel businesses with the ability to monitor Wi-Fi signal strength for each guestroom where a device has been deployed. This capability lets hoteliers narrow down the source of an internet connectivity issue.