While today’s travelers continue to prize cheap travel options, including cheap airplane tickets, discount hotel rooms, and cheap vacation packages, they are starting to look for more than simply a flat screen TV in their hotel rooms.
. Hyatt hotels will address this desire with its announcement that it will be introducing an in room TV system that gives guests access to the Internet.
Within the next 12 months guests in all full service Hyatt hotels will be able to log into their Facebook accounts, stream movies from their Netflix accounts, and view content on their rooms 40 or 50 inch TV screen.
Hyatt wants to give its guests “the ability to consume content, be entertained and communicate in a hotel the way they want to...”
Basic cable surfing will not cost guests anything using the new TV system. HBO is no longer offered by Hyatt, but guests who subscribe to HBO at home will have access HBO at Hyatt hotels via HBOGO via the Internet.
Guests desiring standard Internet access, which is needed to check emails, will be charged $9.95 per day for up to one device. For a $5 premium guests will be able to go online with up to four devices. At the $14.95 daily price guests will also have the ability to stream video via the Internet.
Hyatt’s new Internet/TV/entertainment system will empower guests to also be able to order extra towels from housekeeping, view local restaurant recommendations, order room service, and even book city tours.
This new system is expected to be particularly attractive to business people. Business travelers working on presentations will be able to view them, if desired, on the large TV screens in their rooms. After a presentation is completed guests will be able to hit “print” and then have a hard copy delivered to the room.
This will also prove invaluable to groups wanting to communicate with others. Meeting planners, event organizers and wedding parties will be able to send their groups personal welcome messages as well as reminders about events.
This new TV technology is currently being used in 1,800 rooms in three Hyatt properties: Andaz 5th Avenue in New York, the Hyatt Regency New Orleans and the Hyatt Regency Denver Tech Center. Ultimately this technology will reach about 60,000 hotel rooms in all of Hyatt’s full service North American hotels.
Two thirds of these hotels will install the system by the end of the year, with the rest completed early in 2013.
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