We’ve recently partnered with Filmbank in a promotion to brand hotel key cards, TV banners, trailers, turndown cards, and meal-deal promotions with artwork from new movies that are available on digital TV within the hotel.  One example is our work with UK Marriott, where we distributed 10,000 key cards in February branded with artwork from the film, Sherlock Holmes.  We chose to measure this promotion closely to show hoteliers the benefits and increase revenue that PayTV can bring to their hotels.
The results from the promotion were huge! Guests with the Sherlock Holmes (or Angels & Demons) card were much more likely to spend more on PayTV in-room movies than those guests without the branded key card. Many guests liked the key cards so much they saved them as a collector item, which might entice them to book other hotel rooms to extend their collection of key cards branded with different movies on them. The key card promotion assisted in increased sales with 93% higher revenue in the hotels carrying the promotion. Not only did the films that were promoted have increased sales in the hotel room, but there was an increased awareness among guests for the concept of film offerings as a whole. 
Acentic is very proud to have been a part of this promotion with Filmbank and looks forward to participating in further promotions of this kind. Acentic works with Filmbank often, as it is responsible for providing the widest range of movies to hotels in 10-12 weeks after the cinema release.
I see many opportunities for Acentic and Filmbank to work together to reach better revenue generating PayTV plans for hotels, allowing hoteliers to make the most of Hollywood and reach hotel guests’ high expectations.

Held every two years, the Ryder Cup is the only place to be for those with a passion for golf.  This year, the event will be held at the Celtic Manor Resort on the outskirts of Newport in South Wales.  With 2008’s Ryder Cup drawing just over 243,000 people, 2010 is set to be a huge event with hundreds of thousands of people from over 100 countries around the world.  To make the most of the event and fully enjoy the Ryder Cup 2010 at the Celtic Manor Resort, guests and attendees are going to need clear and practical information on the different aspects of the event, the venue and the festivities. 

Sure most people will be watching the greatest players from Europe and the US battle it out on the course, but during the downtime they’ll want to relax in their room with the television programming they are used to.  The Celtic Manor’s owner, Sir Terence Hedley Matthews, wants only the best in guest room technology for all the Ryder Cup attendees and believe me, Terry knows his technology, having blazed the high tech trail by founding some of the biggest name tech companies in the UK. That’s why we’re helping the Celtic Manor take the next step to provide over 500 TV and radio channels so that there is something for everyone and local programming for all the international guests. We’ll be showing all the greatest golf flicks such as, Caddy Shack, Tin Cup, Bobby Jones: Stroke of Genius, The Greatest Game Ever Played, etc. Also families and children can have plenty to watch if they aren’t interested in what’s happening on the green.
But we’ll also be giving them an entertainment experience that they’ve never seen before when they turn on the TV and see the Panorama and Philips Ultimate HD system. And what goes better with sporting events than HD television?  Guests can watch multiple HDTV channels and movies in their downtime, which the Celtic Manor could only offer with the help of Acentic.
Now all the Ryder Cup attendees can just sit back, relax and look forward to witnessing the greatest players from Europe and USA do battle and absorbing the atmosphere of this thrilling biennial tournament! I’m looking forward to see who makes the putts!

I went hunting for some new shoes the other day. It’s incredible how dragging your feet through Europe’s airports actually wears the soles thin. So, as I went through the effort of wandering out to the shops and trying on multiple pairs of shoes, all of which were either too big or too small, I reflected on the return on investment for the sales person patiently serving me. Surely the margin on those leather-soled shoes wouldn’t pay for his hourly salary, shop overheads and its advertisements in the local newspaper. Having finally settled on a pair of rather fetching brown shoes, I rushed to the sales counter to pay and tear off away from the world of shoe shops.  At that point I realised why the sales person had been so patient. Suddenly I found myself purchasing a shoe polish, a special brush for this specific type of leather and that all important water proofing spray that one absolutely needs for an English summer.

How often does that happen when you are at the reception counter in a hotel? Not very, but as some of our customers have proved to us, it can work. Tonight I am in a hotel room having benefited from a 20 euro upgrade which provides me with breakfast, HSIA and all you can watch PayTV. An easy up sell by the hotel reception. With Avatar released Europe-wide, hotels should surf on the hype and let their staff offer great deals to guests and generate some extra revenue for the hotel.

Recently spotted in a hotel bedroom: An alarm clock with the following instructions written on the top:
 
1. Press and hold the “Alarm 1” or “Alarm 2” button until the “Alarm time” appears on the display. Press the “settings” knob and the “alarm hour “ will blink
2. Rotate the “settings” knob to change the hour and press to set
3. Rotate the “settings” knob to change the minutes and press to set
4. Rotate the “settings” knob until “source” appears on the display and press to select I-pod, buzzer, AM or FM and press to set
5. Rotate the “settings” knob until “exit” appears on the display and press to exit

Honestly, after all that would you be confident that your alarm will go off at the right time? Just use the TV system…it’s much more simple!

It was one of those nights after a day on the road with partners and customers that we all have experienced. I had jetlag and a small hangover but finally made it back to the hotel. Despite all of that, I still had work to do and sat down to clear out my inbox and answer some emails. I connected my laptop to the Internet via the Ethernet cable provided for me on the desk and started working away with determination to catch up on all those emails. With jetlag creeping up on me, I switched on the TV to stay awake and leverage my multitasking abilities, even though my wife disagrees with that when I claim to have them at home.

And then it hit me, the only way to watch the TV from the desk was to wrench my neck at 90 degrees and risk permanent damage in order to catch a glimpse of the television. One must wonder what the architects were thinking and/or drinking when they made this design.

Next, I went to the bed to sit and see the TV more comfortably but at that point I fell victim to the limitations of being connected to the Internet with a cable. There was just no way I could pull the Ethernet cable all the way to the bed without ripping everything out. Thankfully all PCs today have integrated WiFi, which is fully secure, so I decided to connect to the hotel’s WiFi network. I was shocked and stunned when I realized that the hotel’s WiFi was provided by a different provider than the one that provided the wired technology and I would have to pay again to access the Internet via WiFi.

At Acentic, we strongly encourage hoteliers to take ownership of their technology and avoid scenarios like these which will certainly lead to disgruntled guests as well as lost revenue for the hotel. My suggestion is learn through experience. Hotelier’s who put a high premium on guest satisfaction, should try a little field work: go in and sleep in one their hotel rooms for one night and try out the technology to experience how a guest would experience it. A few small adjustments and my hotel room would have been a highly rated stay and I would have been able to fully enjoy this beautiful hotel and get my work done.

I was having a discussion with some former colleagues all currently working in the consumer PayTV industry. One of the major recurring themes in interactive TV architecture is how best to be future proof. Going back a number of years, (all the way back to 1999) I remember one of the first IPTV STBs that was actually some kind of egg timer to keep the viewer occupied whilst the TV switched channels. There was also a HTML user interface which tended to load in blocks. However back then this was revolutionary technology which was going to allow telecom operators to fight off the threat of cable who were already offering high speed internet, TV and voice. The market was still seeking innovative services seeing the television as the main multimedia device in the home.

There were endless arguments on the processing power that would be needed to run all these applications. The debate is still open today, and within the hotel world we often still see slow channel changing and chunky HTML interfaces from systems which claim to be cutting edge but haven’t been able to evolve. Within Acentic not only do we always ensure that our architecture provides sufficient processing power, but we have invested in the expertise to fully leverage it. With a dedicated team of five graphical user interface designers we also ensure that the interface evolves over time accompanying the hotel in its brand evolution and reflecting the latest in the digital lifestyle. Whilst the average mobile phone lasts two years and the average consumer STB is in your living room for three years, hotel systems are in place the longest, for five years. The ability to evolve is therefore key.

At Mobile World Congress this year in Barcelona, there were many new ideas centered around making your mobile life better. Some of them had the cool factor, from an interface from Swedish TAT which lets you identify a person’s face via your phone camera and deliver not only profile information about that person but also show you their latest status updates, to green mobile technology such as MyFC which makes fuels cells and chargers so you can charge any mobile or laptop, extending the battery life of your portable device.

Then we saw it. The lifestyle technology that we knew we would see in hotel rooms next. We know we will see it because for the past decade, hoteliers have been transforming their hotel rooms into more of what the guest is used to at home. From the way we search for content on TV and surf for movies, to the lighting around the bed versus the lighting around the work spaces – hotels have been creating a lifestyle experience. You see companies like Philips creating a new dynamic around mood lighting in hotel rooms, TV’s that feel like they belong in our living rooms, and Acentic which creates the technology giving you access to programming and content that parallels how we interact with our computer.

So what is this new discovery that  completes the lifestyle experience of the guest? The furniture. Now if you combine the furniture with our busy mobile lifestyles and the hectic pace of the business traveller then the lifestyle technology we saw at Mobile World Congress is just what hoteliers will be doing next. A Finnish company, Powerkiss www.powerkiss.com has said goodbye to the cables that go along with charging your portable devices including mobile phones. Their solution – work with furniture manufacturers and imbed a charging device into the furniture. All the guest has to do is attach  a pin into the device and place it on the furniture with the device built in and the mobile phone charges automatically. No more need for cables or for adaptors that don’t work anyway.

Technology has moved away from just code and software to practical applications that make your life better in a more direct way when you are away from home. 

 Guest blogger: Jennifer Hicks, Founder , ink Communications, marketing consultant, Acentic

I was in the city today with one of those finance types... seriously though a very knowledgeable, hard working and successful lady who travels a lot and expects a level of service and is prepared to pay for service. Her question was simple:” Why do my favourite hotels have the most luxurious beds with soft snugly linen sheets, a mountain of pillows to chose from and bathroom amenities that would please any man or woman and yet I have to pay to watch a film on a Sunday night on an old TV screen?”.

Sadly she saw it as “my” [sic] Acentic's fault... In Europe last year only 7% of 4/5 star hotels upgraded their TV screens and content systems. Our industry sector remains plagued by the legacy of “free TV screens for charging for adult content” clearly this is archaic which I have never supported as a sustainable guest service.

I implore any hotelier reading this to ensure that they forward budget for full HD screens and quality HD content management end to end in order that the guest TV experience is equal to the luxurious linen and amenities experience that we all enjoy!

Except for the lucky ones amongst you who live under warmer climates many of you will have been battling the elements in this new year as snow and ice hits most of Europe. Whilst some countries seem to contend extremely well with harsh winters I recently experienced the joys of an airport seemingly unable to clear 10cm of snow from its runaways. A three hour wait in the airport followed by a two an half hour wait inside the plane allowed me to get on with my work thanks to those fantastic laptop batteries our IT department issue to our road warriors. Gone are the days where you would work for an hour and then dash off to the bar because the battery was flat. And as my laptop battery level reached dangerously the zero minute mark we were promptly disembarked and told to fend for ourselves, ah the joys of low cost airlines. With all airport hotels overflowing found a train into town and then trudged through the snow to the nearest hotel arriving shivering, wet and disheartened. And then hospitality took over- a warm welcome at reception, some genuine sympathy, a great room with a comfortable bed, a good meal with an excellent smiling service and a life saving beer. Followed by a fuzzy TV picture, an extremely limited number of TV channels and a few out of date movies. Interesting how that fantastic experience and great work by the staff can be marred by a lackluster in-room experience.

Hi, you may think that I’m behind times but, yes, video on demand has finally hit my home in the UK. No longer do I have to trek down to the local video store in the great British drizzle…I now have a huge selection of titles provided straight to my living room. Unfortunately the releases are rather old. Our consumer PayTV operators obviously don’t have the same access to early release schedules as we do. But I am now part of the millions in the UK that watch a VoD title every week.

I walked into a hotel last week thinking about what I was going to do for the evening- have dinner in the hotel restaurant or walk into town and have dinner there. The great thing about hotels is that you get the choice just like at home really. Well, the same can be said for entertainment. Now that I have movies just one zap away (yes, not a click, a zap. W are talking about TVs not PCs) at home watching movies has become a habit and it now impacts my behaviour on the road. The other choice for me was obviously finding where the local cinema is, paying a taxi to get there and then watching a movie in a language I don’t understand. Not very appealing! So after my healthy dinner (I have to keep fit for my tennis tournaments) I went up to my room and there I was presented with multiple choices: a choice of movies but also the possibility of a free popcorn bag should I purchase a movie- now, that is better than my home experience! So please, don’t tell my wife or tennis trainer but I settled down to watch a movie that we’ll only have in our homes in 6 months time and I indulged in a bag of fantastic popcorn.