Investing in quality in-room entertainment has long been a key factor for increasing customer satisfaction and brand loyalty, but keeping up with constantly shifting guest preferences can be an operational headache. Brands must decide when to expend capital on technology at the risk of frustrating consumers who expect the newest apps and services to be readily available. If timed incorrectly, it could backfire.
“What could be a stressor is adopting something too soon in [the] thought that maybe it’ll be an emerging trend, but then find out that it really hasn’t, and then you [deployed] capital towards that that you really didn’t need to,” said Matthew Woodruff, EVP of guest excellence and chief brand partner officer for Hospitality Ventures Management Group. “I’m proud of our brand partners that they do the research and adopt when they feel that it’s going to be a viable trend that’s important in the industry.”
One trend that’s certain is guests’ growing desire for hotels to offer a “home away from home” experience. When it comes to in-room entertainment, that means a system that works in seamless conjunction with their own devices, apps and streaming services. Basic cable remains an essential component of overall entertainment offerings, but consumers also expect to view their own content on the services they regularly use.
Allowing customers to stream Netflix or Hulu isn’t as simple as adding those apps to the television set. There’s the added step of requiring users to either log in or link their accounts from another device. In-house streaming service accounts don’t have the personalized recommendations and feeds that guests are accustomed to viewing on their home screens.
“We found pretty quickly that doing something like having a house account that other people log in to is not optimal. People really want the shows they watch, the music they listen to, the channels they have, etc.,” said Phillip Bates, CEO of TMC Hospitality, an investment and management company aimed at the “social group traveler.”
TMC’s solution has been to install Chromecasts in each of the rooms across its six properties. This allows guests to log in from their personal devices before “casting” content onto the screen. To facilitate this process, TMC Hospitality built a front-end platform that displays after guests turn on in-room television sets, encouraging them to link their devices to the Chromecast.
“We don’t actually show any sort of apps [on the screen,]” Bates said. “The only step that guests need to do is connect via Wi-Fi to our TV, which is very simple, and then any application that they have on their laptop or phone or iPad.”
Other brands have experimented with creating their own apps to work in conjunction with smart TVs, allowing customers to log in to their preferred streaming services via their phones and have them automatically sync to the apps on the television. Hilton Connected Room, in a partnership with Netflix that launched in 2019, lets guests sign in to streaming services via the Hilton Honors app. If they don’t have the app, they can still press the “Netflix” button on their remote and log in by entering their username and password through the in-room device.
“A lot of brands don’t yet have the ability right now to safely and securely allow a guest to go in similar to like you do with YouTube or with Netflix, and link your phone completely to the television,” said Woodruff, who said this functionality is in the works.