The Hotel Next to Yours is Better, Here’s Why:

The Guest Experience

For many, travel is an escape from the norm, but your hotel room is essentially your home away from home. After exploring new territory, we want to come back to something familiar while we freshen up for the next adventure, or day of meetings, as it is for some.

Imagine for a moment your name is John, you’re here in Johannesburg for a week to attend a conference. The days are long and mentally draining. What keeps you sane back home in Sweden is your early morning ritual of coffee and your favourite paper. While your English is good, you’d much prefer reading in your native Swedish. Even if they were in printed in your home language, all the complimentary newspapers in the lobby have headlines about some man called Julius Malema you’ve never heard of and you don’t know any of the sports teams.

As small a detail or inconvenience this may seem, it truly affects the guest experience. John might have to consider the hotel next door when he books his next stay in South Africa. Unless of course the hotel had a different option.

DLT Media developed The Hotel Media Platform, which is a new browser-based digital newsstand.  This allows hotel guests to access over 800 local and international newspapers and magazine titles, along with a range of digital and audio books, video content and games. It’s convenient because it operates from a guest’s mobile, tablet or PC connected to the hotel’s IP address via Wi-Fi. Because it’s venue branded, the digital library looks and feels like an extension of the hotel.

Used in prestigious hotels such as Hilton London, The Savoy, W Hotel and Taj Dubai internationally, it shouldn’t come as a surprise that our local hotels, such as The Michelangelo, Forever Group, Premier Hotels and Taj Hotels, have already joined in to stay ahead of their local peers. 

Digital is on the Rise

By now I’m sure you’ve heard the news: Digital is on the Rise. Weekend newspapers, for instance, have increased their losses to 8.3% on the prior year by Q4 in 2019, so digital continues it’s rise. It’s not that magazines and newspapers don’t have a purpose, they do in that many of us are tactile individuals who like to lean back and turn the pages, we like to disconnect from digital in our off time.

Think about the journey a stack of newspapers takes in a hotel. It’s costly to purchase because you need a variety of titles and a lot of copies. This is even more expensive if you’re supplying international titles. You then disperse them throughout the hotel and possibly even in the rooms. Each copy has a short shelf life because the news expires by the end of the day and people tend not to care for things that are free, so a resource will be running around replacing them due to wear and tear. Finally, you need to pay to have these papers collected and discarded.

The Hotel Media Platform from DLT Media, takes all the fuss away and replaces it with a host of advantages:

• Newspaper and magazine content from over 30 Countries (such as U.K, USA, ITA, FRA and local, of course)  
• Refreshed content is added daily
• Hotels pay a simple fixed monthly fee based on the number of rooms irrespective of how much content is accessed by guests
• It’s user-friendly, guests love that they can access it directly from their device without having to download an app for their stay
• Guests can easily filter the wide selection of titles by language and apply search criteria to find specific titles. Publications can be accessed with a simple click of a button and appear on guests’ devices exactly as they look in print, with high definition images and impressive double page spreads
• The platform is best in class and the fastest of its kind, minimizing publisher file size to ensure rapid access times for the guest that guarantee the reader a great experience

Going Green

Sustainability is no longer a phrase used by at-home recyclers and vegetarians. With the decline of the environment finally being a global concern, brands and industries are making positive and aggressive changes to do their part. Within travel, many potential guests are actively searching for more eco-friendly options.

Mandala Research reported recently that 60 percent of U.S. travellers have booked “sustainable” trips in the past three years alone. This is not just a trend, but practices that the hospitality industry is implementing more each day. Eco-conscious consumers also want to support your business because your values will align with their ideals when your hotel applies green practices, leading to loyalty.

This is especially true with millennials, who are gaining spending power. “They are twice as likely to support brands with strong management of environmental and social issues”, says Diana Verde Nieto, co-founder and CEO of Positive Luxury. Brands must not just manage their impact but communicate it.

One of the easiest ways to go green is to get rid of printed media waste in your hotel. Just consider the printing and recycling involved. Adopting a browser-based digital is just better for the environment. After all, in 2019, it’s not about keeping up with the times any more, it’s about progressive action.       

International Customers

International guests visiting your hotel have certain expectations that you’re already catering to. Cleanliness, Quality sheets and beds, adequate safety, tasty food and of course internet access all make up the base standards found at any hotel worth its salt. When they come to a new country to explore, there is a lot that will be an adjustment, their hotel shouldn’t be.

In fine hotels across Europe it’s already expected that you will cater to their media needs through an online portal. This eliminates the pain of combing through news that isn’t relevant or crosswords in another language. An interactive platform of this nature offers a range of popular titles, such as The Wall Street Journal, Harper’s Bazaar, The New York Times and The Guardian, from countries, while being fully branded to look like an extension of the hotel.

Consider that your guests have different needs. Mom might want to catch up on her fashion magazines or an audio book while Dad wants to read the paper. The kids might need to be occupied with video content or playing video games.  It’s the same for hotels, in that you can edit the content you wish your guests to access on the platform, plus this is a great place to add your own content such as corporate literature.

A Captive Audience

Guests are busy and often preoccupied with activities they’ve planned. As a hotel you have your services you wish them to see and the promotions you mention in their welcome letter or place at the front desk may never get noticed.

By joining many of the leading hotels in launching a branded browser-based digital newsstand, you can offer banner positions and "promotional pods" in various layouts that the hotels can use to advertise services to guests. This works because when guests access the platform, they are settling in for some down time to read or browse the interface. They will be the captive audience you’re looking for, not to mention, they will be receptive to it because it’s on their own terms.

The cost of employing the platform will easily be made up in areas such as rebooking and securing bookings for the spa or restaurant.

Lastly, here are some of the important features of The Hotel Media Platform:

• Web and mobile first
  The platform provides the fastest and best responsive, retina quality, web-based solution in the market.

• Quick on-boarding
  New sites can be created within 24 hours

• Offline Micro Server Technology
  Allowing content to be deployed and wirelessly synchronised using either WiFi

• Fully Isolated solution for Enterprise customers
  Ability to deliver secure dedicated environment to ensure no other client’s data is held or processed within their environment

• Integration
  Ability to deep link content into customers mobile apps or web portals

• In room system support 
  Ability to link the platform to hotels web-enabled in-room media systems. This allows guests to browse the catalogue of content on screen and then use their mobile device camera to access the content.

For information on how you can employ the digital platform for your guests, please get in touch so we can set up a demo. Simply visit http://www.hotelmediaplatform.co.za