This was an advice given to me when we first started this. But sometimes your people do some neat things and we let it pass by.

The ArabellaSheraton Grand Hotel in Munich has begun a room by room refurbishment which began on 19th January and will be completed on the 30th May. The hotel has an old analogue Pay-TV system with CRT TVs. I just picked up last week that we installed a DVB-C headend straight away and as each room is completed, a new Philips 32” screen is installed with our Panorama digital TV platform. As of today, over 50% of rooms are refurbished and have digital tv whilst the non-refurbished but still in action have analogue TV with CRT’s.

So no old rooms with new technology, and no new rooms with old technology. Simple but very very neat. These are the kind of things we do but are not very good at telling our customers.

Way to go Waldemar!

I mean if there are less than 40 bedrooms or something, then perhaps. But to install a non-system TV in a hotel is "penny wise and pound foolish” (English proverb from the early eighteenth century).

Consumer TVs have no central control and channels cannot be locked down. A guest can therefore detune the tv from its channel and if the hotel ever finds out through a complaining customer, a maintenance engineer will have to be dispatched to the room(s) to retune.

Consumer TVs do not have a global retuning facility so when new channels appear, a visit has to be made to every room. Central control can allow the programme set up to be changed to include freeview digital channels alongside anologue broadcast channels….but NOT on consumer TVs.

Consumer TVs  do not have the facility to preset the volume to an appropriate level, so the idiot in the next room can fall asleep in a stupor listening to MTV on full volume. If a system tv was involved, the reception could turn the volume down remotely. The alternative is a pick-axe to the door.

Consumer TVs do not have a clock facility or alarm facility.

I cannot think of any reason whatsoever why a hotel should install a consumer TV, unless the staff have nothing to do except visit the rooms all the time and fix TVs rather than talk to guests.

"The current economic crisis is creating unprecedented challenges and opportunities for hoteliers, resulting in the greatest repositioning of wealth since the 1930s," said Jim Butler, author of www.HotelLawBlog.com and chairman of the Global Hospitality Group. Acentic has learned valuable lessons from its years of experience in the hotel technology industry that help us do well in this economy.  We know that hotels have to define differences and create unique experiences for guests, but how do you do that unless your hotel has the biggest fish tank in the world (Radisson Berlin) or your hotel is made of ice (Hotel De Glace, Quebec).  If you’re not one of the world’s most unique “gimmick” hotels, you have to differentiate by knowing what the guest wants in their room before the guest even knows it.  This is done with technology advancements such as on-demand, interactive TV with perfect picture quality, user-friendly interface and innovative content.  This is what Acentic is helping hotels achieve with our Panorama iTV system – we have the content research and technology to provide the channels and on-demand content that guests want in order to keep the hotel one step ahead of the guest expectations, in a sense we’re helping hotels shape the guests’ expectations by providing the in-room technology that they didn’t even know they needed until they checked-in. By differentiating the hotel with enhanced in-room technology, hoteliers that have chosen Acentic Panorama have seen increased revenue up to 30%.  According to Cable and Satellite International, in Western Europe over 60% of homes have digital TV, so of course these people would expect at least that in their hotel room. Acentic Panorama aims to give them the very best of what they have at home but also going beyond what is in their living room to put the hotel room entertainment system ahead of the consumer world.  This is the way to ensure high take up rates, guest satisfaction, ROI, and differentiation among a sea of hotels all struggling in this economy.

Acentic's strategy to succeed in recession. Some of the things we proactively do, and some of the things just happen.

• We work longer, we work harder
• We focus on cash
• We visit more customers
• We try to be much more positive in our actions
• We focus on less things
• We focus on cash
• We concentrate more on details
• We travel less and only for very important issues
• We know it will pass but we are going to be fitter when it does
• We forget about the good old days
• We focus on cash
• We really try to understand our customers issues
• We praise good work and ideas
• We kill negativity
• We network like crazy
• We try and simplify everything
• We concentrate on product development
• We shrug off the failures and try again
• We blame less
• We concentrate on staff development
• We think more about new revenues
• We work harder on service and make sure installations are perfect
• We focus on cash

And then you think, why aren't we doing these things all the time anyway?

This week Acentic sat in the Duesseldorf International Airport at Starbucks and did some real international business. Over some coffee we formalized our partnership with Covecolor, our distributor from beautiful Tahiti. Covecolor is going to help spread Acentic’s global reach to Polynesia by introducing our iTV systems to the Tahitian hotel market. We are looking forward to our work with Covecolor and some work trips to paradise won’t be so bad either.