Mobile & wireless will transform hotel & dining experiences

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In addition to its E-Menu for restaurants, Ameranth also offers an in-room E-Guest Book. Rather than looking through an imitation leather folio that can be outdated or missing pages, hotel guests can use an in-room laptop or TV screen to order room service, learn about hotel amenities, and find local shops, restaurants and taxi services, in multiple languages.

"It's a way for the hotel to build relationships with the local community and sell space in their guest book that can be dynamically modified," says Rob Lewis, Ameranth's director of product management. "For example, if there's a taxi company that isn't performing up to the needs and expectations of your guests, the hotel operator can take them off their guest book."

Instead of traditional postcards showing a picture of the outside of the hotel, guests can send digital postcards via e-mail. But it's not simply about having guests' postcards arrive home before they do, according to Lewis.

"It's a brand-building interactive postcard system that allows guests to send a digital postcard from a specific site," says Lewis. "It's a way for the hotel to build a viral network to encourage guests and digital postcard recipients to learn more about that specific hotel and other properties in that network. Reservation contact information is included in the outbound message, and hoteliers are able to sell advertising space on those digital postcards."

Ameranth says its E-Guest Book is currently being used at two properties of a major hotel chain.

Hotel guests who want in-room libations will find that the traditional mini-fridge stocked with various alcoholic and non-alcoholic drinks is being replaced by a digital mini-bar system from Microsoft partner ontap4u Inc. Instead of breaking the seal on the mini-bar door to get a drink, guests select beverages from a touch screen display. Beverages are served via the unit's fountain dispensers. Guests may choose the size and type of drink, whether they want it mixed, and with or without lemon or lime.

"In today's lodging environment mini bars are loss leaders," says Microsoft's Litchford. "Hoteliers rarely make money on them, primarily because of the labor it takes to inventory and restock them and as a result of customer disputes over charges. This concept provides a greater variety of selections that are fresher, and it tracks customer usage. Because the drinks are all pre-mixed, hotel operator don't have to restock bottles or cans daily in every room."

Nextprise, a video concierge and virtual butler service from Microsoft partner Experticity, is another service hotels may leverage to create unique guest experiences and optimize RevPAG. Available 24 hours a day, Experticity's video concierge lets guests interact in their own language via digital video connection with a live concierge who can recommend a restaurant and make dinner reservations, book tickets and excursions and assist with travel reservations, including providing printed brochures and cached video streams of destinations in the hotel's network.

Experticity also offers an in-room virtual butler service, although unlike the video concierge, the virtual butler's video connection is one-way and the remote butler is not able to see into a guest's room.

For hotel properties with multiple establishments under one roof -- such as a gift shop, restaurant, and bar -- or multiple locations in different regions, Microsoft partner InfoGenesis provides a point-of-sale system that allows reporting at the enterprise level in a single environment. The system interfaces with a single Microsoft SQL Server and is set up on a Microsoft Windows XP platform.

"We enable operators to break to break out properties by enterprise, by region and by store level," said Jeff Geppert, account executive at InfoGenesis, an important factor for large hotel chains that rely comparative analysis to track guest counts and RevPAG. The InfoGenesis POS system doesn't require the hotel to have servers on the property, says Geppert. Instead, it employs one central server, and one SQL database.

The Smarter Hospitality program also enables in-room digital entertainment, including high-definition TV, digital music, digital video recording and video games. Working with its partners KoolConnect and Unisys, the "KoolConnect Interactive System" is an interactive guest service system that integrates in-room Internet connectivity with an extensive entertainment and information package including pay per view, video on demand, customized digital features, virtual concierge services as well as local activity and restaurant information. Guests are able to create a profile that establishes their preferred room temperature, whether they want the evening turn-down service and their preferred entertainment options.

"Guests are able to create an environment that's more like home," says Tom Cooley, a Microsoft platform strategy advisor. "Using Windows Media Center, guests are even able to display family photos that have been e-mailed to create an in-room slide show. They can log on, download pictures onto the TV, listen to music, watch on-demand video and check e-mail."

Because the content is personalized, when guests leave the cache is cleared by the hotel. For hotel operators, it provides a point of competitive differentiation that allows them to attract and re-attract those customers, according to Cooley.

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