Toshiba senior group product manager Europe, Allen Pestell, reveals the new formats being used in hospitality venues to display information interactively.
In which parts of the hospitality industry can AV equipment make the biggest contribution to the success of a venue?
AV can help in all areas of a hotel, it is all dependant on the hotels focus e.g. bar restaurant in advertising offers/meals. Depending on size, we are also seeing interactive menu boards being used allowing you to drill into more detail regarding ingredients for example. In addition, waiters are now using tablets instead of traditional menus, allowing you to display information in new formats.
As for reception areas large screen displays are being used in a number of ways from traditional advertising to supporting the information areas with touchscreen interaction.
Which technologies are you seeing increased demand for in hospitality venues?
- Touch solutions – interaction and engages user
- Small screen displays (10-15in) for entrances and meeting rooms to advertise room names along with customer names for example.
To what extent is consumer technology setting the standard for AV technology in hospitality venues?
With customers content now coming in many forms the traditional DVD player is no longer enough, customers are bringing USBs with content and tablets with content. Making sure that devices in hotels are capable of displaying and playing back this content is a requirement.
In addition we have seen a number of old CRT units being replaced so there is a need for slimmer, lighter, space saving units to be installed.
From a hotels point of view a key functionality that has been seen is the ability to lock off/lock out parts of the menu after setup ensuring that the TV is not reset or mistuned after installation.
