3D TVs in the hospitality (by Philips)

This entry summarizes the 3 options offered by Philips. This company, a leader company in television technology.They offer the widest selection of LED TVs, all screen sizes, with special features, including the world's first Full HD 3D TV for hotels.
The first one was introduced in the Netherlands. The Super Seven, is a wide service package, with possible solutions as extended warranties and rental offerings.

 

Philips is introducing a new range of TVs to the hospitality industry, bringing the in-home cinematic viewing experience to business and leisure travelers. (source: Philips)

EasySuite range
Available in screen sizes from 19 to 32". This model combines reliability, and stylish, slim design with best-in-class picture performance. It has the newest LED backlighting technology, which helps save energy (up to 50%) it is sustainable and decreases running costs. With an Integrated Connectivity Panel allows hotel guests to connect their digital devices to the TV so that they access their own content when enjoying their hotel stay, which wasn't available before, due to codes, which only the staff had. The codes couldn't distinguish between users, for this reason they had access to change the whole system. (I experienced that one, when I was working in a hotel, and a guest asked me for the code)
PrimeSuite range
The screen sizes ranging from 22" to 42", and it is compatible with any hotel in-room entertainment system.
With MyChoice built in system offers the possibility to gain additional revenues by selling scratch cards that allow guests to view premium channels.
Signature range
This cinematic viewing includes the world's first 58" Full HD 3D cinematic proportion LED TV for hotels, the Cinema 21:9. The Cinema 21:9 delivers a true to life 3D viewing experience just like at the cinema.

The new range of Philips TVs for hotels will be introduced in October across Europe, Middle East, Africa, Australia and New Zealand.


About Royal Philips Electronics I just want to include a short information about the company, as they facts are always interesting, how huge the multinational companies could be.
The company focuses on improving people's lives through timely innovations (healthcare, lifestyle and lighting) The headquarter is in the Netherlands, Philips employs approximately 116,000 employees in more than 60 countries worldwide. Its sales were EUR 23 billion in 2009.

Social Media Success Factors

The video of the presentation (http://www.modul.ac.at/files/ecm/ECM-Annual-Conference-Social-Media-Success-Factors-MODUL-University-Vienna.html) is really interesting, I got some new information to know. There were good statictical graphs. The set-up showed the success factors, how to increase visitors, information, and revenue as a result for a product or service.

The presenters showed that it is easier than ever to measure or track, compare and analyse the indicators, visitors, all the numbers that come forward as a webpage was looked at. And it is not only on google accessible, but interestingly on facebook, too.

You could take advantage of every happening. Here was a good sentence that I liked: „Give me cash, not ash“

With all these tools we can get more and more detailed information, and we are able to controll as many aspects, as possible.

My opinion is that it was always important to measure costumers, but the possibilities were limited. With the systematic world of google, and now facebook is everything possible. And this is not an overstatement. Depending on the size and the budget of the company, a company has to take decisions whether to spend extra money on online marketing agencies, or not. But as we saw in this presentations, there are really useful ideas, which doesn’t cost money. A smaller company should start with the level 1, and set the purpose, why are they online. When they develop, 1 or 2 colleagues could manage to develop their SoM, and extend future planning, and refine strategy.

Beside web 2.0 there is the web analytics 2.0, which makes analysis online user friendlier and easier. The time has arrived, when desired outcomes online and offline can be achieved without being computer programmers.

Future of Video– Is the Hotel Industry Ready?

The hotel industry tries to reach its guests more likely in a friendlier way, for this reason they try to find all kind of solutions to attract the guests. Of course there should be an optimal way regarding advertisement methods, as you can’t put all the tools on your website, because it’ll be crowded and won’t look professional anymore. It is a fact that viewers who are entertained by your advertisement are more likely to keep looking at what you have to offer and to remember your brand.

I found an interesting study provided by google about the future of the film marketing, or how they say: Display advertising, which covers a bit more, than just films.
Basically they predict that it will work as the GoogleAds on cost-per-view basis. The Smartphone / mobile industry is going to be the number one screen for digital branding. Almost everything will be „social“ that means that you could share, discuss, subscribe to and recommend them. Creativity will know no bounds, and you could interact in unimaginable ways.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GDps8-ZL7FA&feature=player_embedded

The topic of the video: “Display 2015: Smart and Sexy.”


This content is becoming the primary information by online shoppers before booking a hotel room, as it is almost like a real experience with its virtual tours and high quality videos.
Companies in the US noticed after adding "videos to their sites" increased selling statistics with more than 50%, which isn’t unforgettable.
This boost needs a new kind of search engine, namely the video search app e.g. Truveo.
If the tourism industry would do well and is willing to invest in making videos, this could be probably the only way to keep up with consumer demand for that medium.

Photosynth Nr. 1

http://photosynth.net/view.aspx?cid=da01cf8c-a1d1-4cc3-b3f0-cfee43673299

Smartphones as room keys, is this future or present?

A world famous hotel group, the Holiday Inn started to test this issue: How would it work when the hotel guests could use their own mobile phone to go into their room?

The basic idea to download an application to the smartphones and hold the device next to a door sensor. It will open. The advantage on it is that people can use their own device, don’t need any keycards, which often get lost, is also a cost reduce solution and sustainable as less cards have to be produced. Others say it can make the Front Office unnecessary (I’ll write about this at the end). The disadvantage is that it can be hacked and there is a problem for example when the phone gets stolen.
This is what experts said about it. Also a Manager from the InterContinental welcomed the idea: Bryson explained: "The beauty of the smartphone is that guests already have one, and using it for access avoids "burdening people with additional items".

My idea about the arguments are that if a system is IT organized there is a simple way to interrupt into the system. When I worked in the summer at the Front Office, the Head of the Security of Apple was our guest, and he was telling me stories about it, how easy it is to do that. He told me (and who to trust if not him as an expert in IT things) that he could stand there in front of me and open all the doors within 5 minutes with his single smartphone.

The other aspect whit what I don’t agree is: Although there are every kind of solutions to get accomodated fast and automated, and some people seek after it, the personal touch in hotels will NEVER disappear. If we talk only about the money and business issue, a receptionist has really important tasks, not only preparing invoice, giving keys. E.g. he can look at the guests and with his experience he can decide how much deposit has to be taken, will it be a guest who will have 1000 EUR extra costs? A machine won’t be able to do it. No more details now, as it could be an other blog entry.

“Does IT matter”

After reading the article by Nicholas Carr a short answer would be: Definitely yes. Although it seems to be obvious, it is not the only factor that people (including businessmen) take into consideration. One of the best example for it can be found in the tourism and hospitality industry. There are basic expectations of an average guest in a hotel. A customer relationship system (CRS) - to record all the wants and wishes, a telephone to call business and family, WIFI, all these became part of the „infrastructure“, but unpersonality hurts the guest more than we think. If he can’t get a good sleep, if he or she is not in the good mood, if there is a personal problem related to the family, nothing is more important than to have a nice, considerate receptionist, friend, whoever.

If the PMS is frozen, the guests don’t care, they just want to have a room to have a rest accompanied by a smile, which has nothing to do with a digital world.

Travel agency could be an other typically good example. Every hotel, service, tour package is available on the net. One of the many advantages is that standardised systems can be easier understood. When an employee wants to switch between companies, it is good for both sides if he/she knows how to use the worksystem. Less time spend on training, less employee, but more unemployment… It is a long story, but this is not our topic now.

There were forecasts about their negative future, but they are still on the market. We have to ask why? The reason is unambiguous: Personal treatment.

The history of IT development was interesting, but I have to argue with the statement that it came already to its end. I am sure that it still has new ideas that are unimaginable for the human being. 10 years ago it wasn’t visible how are we going to read dozens of books electronically, with one technical equipment which is only 2 cm thick. However it is absolutely true that vendors controll the demand of the consumers. Nobody, or just a very few company owners know what are their planned commoditiesfor the next 2-5 years, or who knows, maybe for the next 10-20 years.   

 Henceforth I wonder what are the future miracles of the IT industry after Ipad, 3D television, full hybrid car, etc.

Market share measurements on a global level: GDS, who is the leader?

To get an overall overview about these huge companies, I had to do a quite big research, as some of them are private companies, and better won’t publish their secret information. At least there are some studies, and their marketing information, which are available, and we could make a guess, who runs the biggest business. It is still obvious, and the most  frequently accessible information that there are 4 major global distribution systems, and the rest is insignificant. Just to clarify: Amadeus, Sabre, Worldspan and Galileo.

If we track the occurents we can get to know easily that Travelport is the owner of Worldspan (since 2007) and Galileo. The statistic measurement depends on the numbers of bookings, bookings in different segments of the traveling (train, air ticket, car rental), and hospitality segments. It can depend on the gross profit as well. There are some statistics which are global, or made on a continental level. Here is a research created by me, considered the total revenues (in 2008) of these companies:

Sabre $1.63 billion

Travelport $2.5 billion

Amadeus EUR 2,461 billion,  $3.69 billion

Considering some smaller GDSs (appr. 20%) , we can say that Amadeus is the market leader with ca. 38%, Travelport is on the second place with its 27%, and Sabre on the third with its 15%.

It is unimaginable that millions of booking transactions happen during 1 second in the world around.

And these huge companies own really big brands, e.g. I didn’t know that Sabre owns 70% of Travelocity, which includes lastminute.com, or Travelport owns GTA, which includes OctopusTravel. At the end I’ll just post some logos, which names might be familiar. Thank you for reading my blog!

Helloooo Modullllllll