In case you missed the second of our fall webinar series, "Panorama SMART IP with LG's integrated smart LEDs" you can listen to a recorded version here:

Keep an eye open for the next in our series, scheduled for Q3-2012.

Hi,

Smart technology has become part of our everyday life the latest innovation to become ubiquitous is the smart TV for the hospitality industry. So, how smart can a TV be and how can hoteliers benefit from it?

Explore with us the integration of smart technology in the hotel environment and we will show you how hoteliers can benefit from a new communications platform using advanced software applications. Our one-hour Smart TV webinar “Panorama SMART IP with LG’s integrated smart LEDs” will show you the optimised solution.

SIGN UP NOW!

When: Thursday, April 17th at 15:00-16:00 Berlin CEST

During this free webinar you will learn all about:

- Smart TVs and hospitality
- Panorama IP and LG Smart LED  - opening new horizons
- Flexibility without the capital expenditure
- Apps – going beyond the buzzword

We look forward to seeing you there!
Panorama SMART IP with LG’s integrated smart LEDs

Your Acentic team

As the European Championships approach, I paid a visit to Kiev and got to see the finishing touches it is putting on its European Championship infrastructure. Naturally, that meant checking out the local hospitality and the local hospitality industry.

High on the country’s list of priorities has been the development of its hospitality estate with the building of modern hotel properties. I stayed in one such property, Hotel Autograph -- well situated in town. Autograph boasts proud staff, some of which have come back to Ukraine after working in hotels across the world. It also is home to a Panorama IPTV solution, which provides an ultra fast GUI and probably the fastest IPTV channel changing in town. So, if for some reason you are in town for the European Championships and desire to get away from football on TV, it will take less than half a second to move to the next channel or hit the system’s channel guide. And, should all channels succumb to football fever, HD movies are already in place.

Overall, the experience was great. Ultimately though, Hotel Autograph demonstrates that through our certified local partner “TV Lux,” Acentic is ready to bring its experience and product platform to cities around Ukraine.

As technology becomes increasingly sophisticated, it also becomes more intuitive and user friendly. Technology advances in all ways. While price is still paramount, hoteliers are no longer looking for the cheapest solution but rather for the one that combines everything they desire: style, features, effectiveness, flexibility for the future, price, etc. In other words, hoteliers look for smart solutions that bring the desired return on investment, increase guest satisfaction and differentiate their hotel offering.

Looking back over the last couple of months, we are proud that our latest projects have managed to provide all the above to our clients.

We are now providing our smart Horizon Internet solution, including Internet kiosk-business centres to 5,500 rooms and public areas in 35 Dorint Hotels primarily located in Germany. The system offers full smartphone and tablet support enabling guests to connect to all their devices. Furthermore, stylish Philips PrimeSuite HD LCDs offer best-in-class picture, HD content including Sky channels and incredible surround sound. A number of innovative features such as Acentic Media and Mobile Apps will be integrated soon, completing and enhancing the offering of the Dorint Hotels.

Moreover, we have recently launched our SMART Conference integrated solution that includes SMART Board™ interactive whiteboard system, Horizon Internet connectivity, conference landing Internet page, state-of-the-art AV technology, public displays and full engineer support. The exclusive smart whiteboard brings today’s innovative touch technology into the meeting room, while offering a flexible communication tool that connects guests and enhances productivity and interactivity. The first hotel to utilize Acentic’s SMART Conference package was the Crowne Plaza London.

When it comes to increasing hotel offerings, the past few months have proved to us that you really can combine style, features, effectiveness, flexibility for the future and price and connect guests in brand new ways.

How many of you chose Betamax over VHS? Sorry to hear it. I'm sure it felt like a good idea at the time, but ultimately the better technology did not prevail and VHS won the day, and our shelf space. Being an early adopter has its risks in the consumer environment and the same can be said in the hospitality guest room.

I was invited to speak at a hotel conference on the impact of 3D TV in the guest environment. Clearly this is exciting stuff and everybody wants to hear more about it, but how many of you actually don those 3D glasses at home? If you do, where do you find the content to watch?

Despite the hype, 3D content remains limited and traditional broadcasters are battling the lack of penetration as well as the total lack of broadcast standards. We are even seeing some of the major PayTV providers such as Canal Plus in France abandon its 3D trials until a day when the barriers to roll out are removed, and more importantly, when content is available. This is a pragmatic approach when one considers that HD is still not mainstream in Europe. So while we play with 3D and it is fun to think about, we suggest that as hoteliers you concentrate first on the basics which are still the migration to digital and HD. You don't want to be stuck with a shelf full of Beta in a VHS future.

I do quite a bit of travelling in my role at Acentic and in turn I get to explore many varied cultures. It is naive to think that all cultures work the same, and an important part of doing business in today’s global market is learning to adapt to the strengths of different cultures and find common ground where it exists. I’ve spoken to hoteliers across the world, and in my experience there is one point of emphasis that remains consistent. Whether meeting with heads of I.T., marketing, finance, maintenance, front of house or general managers, everyone in the hotel industry cares about the guest experience first and foremost. And this is true whether you are in the UK, Norway, France or Hong Kong -- speaking in English, Norwegian, French, Italian, German or Chinese. All differences in culture and methodology add up to one thing: improving guest experience.

Since our industry has its roots so firmly based in technology, it can sometimes be easy to forget about the human focus. As technology advances in the home environment and Moore’s Law (the law which states that computer processors double in power every two years) continues to prove itself out, our industry often looks to solve every issue by throwing the latest, greatest tech at the guest. While this is often helpful, it is very much only part of any good solution.

In basic terms, people stay in hotels for business or leisure. Regardless, the target for any hotelier is for the guest to leave happier than when they arrived. And this is often an uphill battle. Among all the magazine and TV ads, special offers and discount deals, it seems that hotels sometimes forget that the path to the dream hotel room sold in the brochure or website is a complicated one, full of potential annoyances over which nobody has any control. Before they even get to the front door of the hotel, guests often have to endure traffic jams, parking bays too small their car doors to open, overloaded public transport systems, luggage racks too small for their cases, delayed flights, cancellations, layovers the require an Olympic medal in spiriting and so on.

After all of this, the guest just wants things to work, without complication. If new technology can help this, great. If it makes things more complicated and the guest has to jump through hoops to get basic services, failure. On check-in, the guest is simply not interested in HDMI ports, Network Balancing, Guest User Interface etc., they simply want to get to their room, grab a shower, unpack and feel loved again.

Making the guest feel loved again is a core philosophy behind all Acentic products. No matter how tough the journey to the hotel, things will be better once you get through the doors. Whether the guest wants to use the latest on-screen app (such as the restaurant reservation app), buy the latest must-see movie, or catch up on some TV, the experience will be hassle free.

And ultimately, that is the world any hotelier is striving for, a world where hassle and annoyance ends at the front door. The challenges are different for every guest and every culture, but the goal is universal. As a guest, no matter what the trip entailed, no matter where in the world you are or where you came from, you should be able to expect to be taken care of once you arrive at your hotel. It is our job to ensure that all around the world, guests leave hotels in a better state of mind than when they arrived. Now isn’t that a great industry to be in?

From all of us at Acentic, we wish you, your colleagues, friends and family, a very Merry Christmas and a Happy and Prosperous New Year - Your Acentic Team

We are thrilled to be offering our latest technology services to the newly-opened InterContinental Moscow Tverskaya. With its official opening at the end of November 2011, InterContinental Moscow now counts as one of the most upscale and luxury hotels in Moscow, and we are pleased to be providing them an iTV platform commensurate to that luxury. To Moscow we go!

Take a walk around a landfill sometime. Okay, admittedly, this is not your average Sunday afternoon stroll, but were it to be, I am pretty certain you would come across a few cast aside pieces of technology that used to function as in-room hotel technology.

Today you would find CRT TVs by the ton, but not so long ago they were all operating in hotels and hoteliers had no choice but to use them. You would also find other, more obscure, pieces of hardware you wouldn’t imagine placing in the living room of your worst enemy. You might even find one of my favorite bizarre technology choices for hotels, the in-room keyboard.

In hotels, you would find the in-room keyboard in all sorts of places: by the side of the TV, in the drawer of a desk covered in dust, sitting on the minibar with scratches earned during its tenure as an improvised bottle-opener. What you rarely ever see are signs of use. People just don't need it. If interactive TV is to satisfy guests, it should be easy enough to use with a simple remote control, just like at home.

How many of you have a keyboard at home to drive your TV experience? Probably none of you. The typical TV experience is one of relaxation -- you are a "viewer" more than a "user," and are so by choice. But what about the Internet on TV experience? To get the full value out of the Internet, you obviously benefit from the use of a keyboard. This is where the experience is getting confused. There is a place for a "viewer" and a place for a "user" and they should not be treated as the same experience. Being a "user" effectively rules out the TV as a device for the provision of Internet -- it is a device best suited for viewing. There are a whole host devices better suited for Internet use: the laptop, the tablet or even the smart phone. So why shoehorn everything together?

Ultimately, few of you access the Internet via the TV at home. Possibly, you access simple TV-centric applications, but not the Internet as we know on a keyboard powered device. So why would you want to change your approach when you get to a hotel? Guest satisfaction is gained by the intelligent implementation of technology, and generally if a device is used in a certain manner at home it will be used in the same manner at the hotel. Intelligent technology implementation means spending money wisely to avoid having your new investment soon end up in the landfill.

In case you missed the first of our fall webinar series, "What's possible in the Hotel Room of the Future," you can check out the recording here:

https://acentic.webex.com/acentic/ldr.php?AT=pb&SP=MC&rID=42625212&rKey=0F4CFAD05B96F861

In the webinar, we talked about the future of The Cloud and how it is influencing the way the hospitality industry operates. We outlined some of the challenges of The Cloud, and how Acentic is overcoming those challenges to bring better service and savings to hotels across the world. We also answered many questions on topics like network links and security around P2P distribution. So, if you want to be up to date on The Cloud, you should check out our webinar now https://acentic.webex.com/acentic/ldr.php?AT=pb&SP=MC&rID=42625212&rKey=0F4CFAD05B96F861 and keep an eye open for the next in our series, scheduled for Q1-2012.