Viva La Evolution

Each year, we launch the Big Picture magazine at the Independent Hotel Show in London Olympia. Here, we enjoy a busy few days showcasing our portfolio of products and services, whilst catching up with partners and clients, old and new.

It’s a real highlight for us and a great chance to refl ect on the challenges and successes of the past year.

This year, like so many other events across the world, the Independent Hotel show was cancelled. So instead, we launch The Big Picture 2021 quietly and sensitively and refl ect on the last few months in a very di erent way.

Like most others in the hospitality industry, we’ve experienced a di cult year. However, when faced with a fi ght or fl ight situation, we chose the former, evolving and adapting the business in systemic fashion. We’re now a stronger, more focussed organisation. It’s been a privilege to be part of a team that’s shown such resilience through this crazy period.

We know that others haven’t been as fortunate and send our heartfelt wishes to those a ected by COVID-19 - and hope, by the time you read this, life has become a little more normal.

James Grant, Editor Airwave Europe Ltd

Front cover screen image, copyright ‘Universal Pictures 2020’

MANY MOONS AGO… …a hotel was just a place to rest one’s weary head. Guests were simpler creatures, less demanding, and mostly satisfi ed by cleanliness, comfort and a friendly smile.

Today’s hotel industry is a very di erent place; underpinned by a connected world and technological advancements that ultimately, feeds competition and creates exacting guests with higher expectations and more complicated needs.

In the hotel room, TV systems are slicker, more intelligent and laden with features. Screens have grown (quite signifi cantly) in size, but with a peculiar sense of irony, the heart of our business now centres around a 6-inch display…

NOMOPHOBIA Remember that time you left the house without your mobile? How did that feel? Chances are you felt naked without the device that seems surgically attached to your hand.

And it’s not just you of course. Anxiety, respiratory alterations, trembling, perspiration, agitation, disorientation and a heightened heart-beat - all recognised symptoms of 16 Contents 03 Viva La Evolution 06 David Fogelman, CEO 09 Airwave at Work - Hotels 10 Hotel Information Systems 12 Hotel TV Project Management 14 Telly Addicts 15 Chromecast for Hotels 16 Infection Control Technology 22

18 Airwave at Work – Park Plaza 19 Airwave at Work – Shared Spaces 20 Techlive International 22 WiFi as a Service 24 Airwave Healthcare 26 LG Display Solutions 28 Philips Professional Displays 30 Samsung Display Solutions

‘nomophobia,’ fear of being without a smartphone. As crazy as that may seem, it’s a reality in today’s device-driven world.

With market penetration of smartphones, now almost universal in the UK, it’s of no surprise that guests expect to use their device to interact with a hotel’s technology.

THE INTERNET OF THINGS This interactivity of one smart device with another (via the internet), is essentially referred to as the ‘Internet of Things.’

With $6 trillion invested in IoT solutions over the next 5 years and an estimated 50 billion active IoT devices1, IoT will be as transformative to the world as the Industrial Revolution.

These statistics won’t be lost on progressive hotels who’ll look to adopt IoT, not just to satisfy guest expectations, but to lower operating costs, increase productivity, and introduce new products & services.

The list of which is vast: think electronic key cards, heating, lighting, curtains - all operated via the guest’s smart device. We’re even seeing examples of hotels fi tting RFID (radio frequency identifi cation) chips in their towels to control inventory and manage theft!

We see the humble (SMART) hotel TV as a great example of an a ordable way of introducing IoT capabilities into the hotel room. Supported by robust internet infrastructure, the SMART hotel TV also o ers hoteliers the chance to add functionality later down the line, o ering an element of future-proofi ng (and cost-saving) to their technology.

THE FUTURE’S BRIGHT Whilst it’s not possible to fully guarantee future-proof technology, it’s becoming much easier to o er equipment that’ll impress guests for the long run.

Previous di erentiators such as screen size and bezel footprint have reached saturation point; we don’t think that hotel TV screen sizes will get any bigger (unless hotel rooms are redesigned to accommodate them) and bezels have all but disappeared from 2020’s TV.

Of course, picture quality and resolution can and will improve as hardware heavyweight giants such as Samsung and Sony compete to release viable 8 and 16k screens; however, the naked eye can’t detect the di erence in anything less than gargantuan screen sizes (it’s also worth noting that 8k and 16k content is unlikely to be prevalent for a few years still).

Today, the key to extending the life of a hotel TV system lies in the realms of IoT and upgradeable SMART functionality.

At a much simpler level, a hotel TV system will remain current as long as it mirrors that of the guest’s home environment (we’ll need to make a few assumptions here); this is arguably the most important factor in the provision of hospitality display technology.

A NEW HOME-FROM-HOME This home-from-home experience is hospitality’s holy grail. Within reason of course - guests don’t expect to do the washing-up or clean the windows, but will certainly expect a technology experience that mirrors that of their home environment.

This fundamental expectation is further nuanced by the meteoric rise of AirBnB (who, naturally, fi nd it easier to provide this experience). With over 150 million users, AirBnB provide accommodation for 2 million people every night, and o er travellers a further 6 million places to stay than were available 10-years ago.

Hotels wanting to compete with AirBnB must invest in the provision of a homestay experience. Of course, this can never be fully achieved, so the hotel needs to evolve with the trend instead of fi ghting it. This is great news for the guest who now benefi ts from greater choice – either a fully authentic homestay or a homely experience in the regulated environment of a hotel. 4 www.airwave.tv

LOUNGING AROUND Traditionally, much of a hotel’s e ort to create a home-from-home experience is spent in the bedroom. Makes sense, right? this is where guests spend the majority of their time.

However, we’re seeing a considerable increase in hotels investing in a homely, or ‘lifestyle’ experience outside the bedroom. Brands such as Moxy, Hoxton, Mama Shelter and ALOFT have all transformed lobby & reception areas into cosy living-room spaces.

Much of this can be achieved via comfy sofas, quirky artwork and clever design, but tech enablement is just as important, appeasing the guest’s appetite to remain constantly connected, just like at home.

Critical to this seamless technology experience is robust, intelligent WIFI infrastructure. WiFi leaders, Wifi rst, have created a WiFi ‘bubble’ allowing guests to access their own personal (and secure) WiFi network from anywhere in the hotel – again, just like at home (see page 22 for further details).

COMMUNITY SPIRIT A further string to the progressive hotel’s bow sees entry into the coworking and community arena.

Catering for unprecedented demand in fl exible o ce space (especially since the onset of covid-19), hotel lobbies are transforming into e ervescent coworking hubs, irresistible to millennials and equipped with charging pods, tablets, TVs, and signage displays with vibrant design and 24/7 intelligent messaging.

Airwave’s work with community and workspace providers such as Fora and The Collective (see page 19) is now frequently replicated in the design and deployment of lifestyle technology within our bread-and-butter hotel clients. This collaboration provides both our company and hotels with a great opportunity to grow a lifestyle footprint, underpinned by seamless, connected technology.

LESS IS MORE? At the other end of the scale, we’re also seeing an upward trend in the construction of ‘microhotels’ with chains like Yotel, Premier Inn and Citizen-M o ering pods, capsules and ‘nests’ that focus on the e cient use of space, providing fully functional (often luxurious) bedrooms.

As cupboards, drawers and baths are binned (often, even bins are binned!), the humble (fl at wall-mounted) hotel TV becomes a swiss army knife, able to replace space-hogging amenities such as room manuals, audio equipment, alarm-clocks and telephones.

Add PMS integration and the hotel TV o ers even more bang for your buck, able to control guest-room utilities such as lighting, heating and blinds from a single device.

Whilst this type of set-up is currently rare, it’s certainly the future. And of course, SMART hospitality TVs do o er the scope to future up, providing fl exibility to refresh a system without further hardware investment.

CONTENT WARS It’s easy to get titillated by the SMART TV’s capabilities (and as unashamed techies, the power of today’s TV system really does excite us!), so it’s important to remember that a TV’s primary task is to broadcast content.

As OTT (over-the-top) TV content revolutionises our viewing habits (see page 14), the viewer benefi ts from an astonishing level of choice.

Catch-up TV services such as BBC iPlayer sit alongside a raft of streaming platforms; incumbent heavyweights Netfl ix and Amazon

Prime compete with, amongst others, Apple TV, Hulu, HBO Max, NBC Universal, YouTube and Disney+

So, what does all this mean, you ask? For viewers, there is now more available content than hours in the day to watch it. For hotels, it’s a stark reality - linear TV is no longer an adequate option by itself. Hotels must o er guests access to OTT services if they’re to avoid looking like TV technology dinosaurs.

CAST BUT NOT LEAST With what seems like an infi nite supply of content available to the guest, a hotel is expertly positioned to improve its home-fromhome experience by o ering a platform to access this, right?

Well, yes! and step forward (hospitality certifi ed) Google Chromecast (see page 15 for more details). Chromecast has transformed the hotel TV industry, allowing a guest to cast content from a portable device to the guest-room TV. As if by magic, the guest now has a multitude of entertainment options.

So, with this ingenious bit of kit, a hotelier ticks the TV homestay experience box and moves on to worrying about the quality of the shower gel? Perhaps. But maybe now’s a good time to think about going one step beyond?

We’ve spoken extensively about the home-from-home experience in this article, and throughout the last few Big Picture magazines. It’s that important.

HOME-FROM-HOME PLUS? But hang on a minute. How can we cater for a home-from-home experience when it’s such a broad and fl uctuating label?

If a system is too heavily geared towards Chromecast and on-demand functionality, how does this a ect the two out of ten people that don’t use this technology?

Easy answer! we cater for every guest by providing a home-from-home plus experience.

Firstly, this should be supported by an idiot-proof navigation system, with linear channels being one push of a button away, and all other features positioned prominently and logically. The hotel TV should be no more complicated to operate than that at home.

With these boxes ticked, we now need to cover all bases, providing all the services that guests are used to at home. This should include Chromecast, a carefully curated line-up of linear channels (including international content, where relevant) and Sky TV.

And as the icing on the cake, we recommend a pay-as-you-watch VOD platform, o ering every guest a vehicle to watch ondemand content. Airwave sister company, Techlive International, is the proud owner of the cloud-based VOD app, Airtime, providing new release movie & programming content to hotels at a next-to-nothing cost implication for the hotel (see page 21 for more details).

INFECTION CONTROL All this talk about the home experience seems particularly relevant, as the nation deals with the ramifi cations of covid-19 and a series of mandatory stay-at-home directives.

These gave an apt reminder of the importance of television in our society. 24/7 news coverage, daily press conferences from chief scientists and the government, morning exercise routines streamed live from YouTube, Skype and video call functionality, Netfl ix, BBC iPlayer – all beamed out from the humble SMART TV.

In the few Airwave serviced hotels that stayed open, we saw Chromecast usage go through the roof and a record number of movies streamed from Airtime’s VOD app. Of course, the TV didn’t solve all of society’s considerable problems, but it did provide a welcome comfort blanket.

But of course, there was no time to refl ect on this as we set about curating a portfolio of products to assist our clients in their pursuit of a covid compliant service o ering.

We collaborated with industry partners and created a series of infection control solutions. Notable additions to the product inventory include Otrum’s Virtual Remote Control, Philips’ PeopleCount, sanitiser-dispensing signage displays and a food ordering app, designed and built by Airwave Technical Director, Julian Arnold.

In last year’s Big Picture magazine, we talked about advancing technology, ‘taking the hospitality out of hospitality’ by reducing the need for face-to-face interaction. The irony hasn’t escaped us…

WIFI FIRST At the end of 2020, there was an estimated 50 billion connected devices in the world2 and an average of 50 connected devices per household3 . 50!

What does this mean for the hotel room? With fast connectivity critical to the guest experience (we’re now looking at a recommended speed of 25Mbps per guest) and bandwidth-hogging apps, games and videos populating our portable devices – surely something has to give?

Whilst (luckily) WiFi technology is improving in parallel, the deployment of a hotel’s WiFi and internet infrastructure - and this cannot be over-stated - is of paramount importance. This needs to be handled by a competent, WiFi dedicated organisation with a demonstrable track-record in the delivery of commercial WiFi systems. No longer can this realistically be part of a one-stop-shop service o ering.

Airwave’s core product and service strategy over the past 2 or 3 years has addressed this, seeing us partner with sector-specifi c WiFi providers Wifi rst, WIFI Spark, Mikenopa and AirAngel. These collaborations enable us to provide cost-e ective, integrated systems, underpinned by world-class WiFi technology.

DELIVERING YOUR VISION We hope you fi nd the Big Picture 2021 an enjoyable and insightful read and welcome all thoughts, comments and queries. We love to share our passion, and of course, help deliver your vision…