The Best Way for Hotels to Cut Costs While Keeping Their Guests Happy:
As the world settles into a new normal, the hotel industry can expect a welcomed increase in guests. A McKinsey survey indicated that travel is the second most desired activity after dining out among respondents. In the United States, hotel reservations and rental-car bookings were surging during the 2021 peak travel season. This welcomed increase has many hotel owners looking for ways to reduce recurring expenses while making sure their guests are well taken care of.
Expected Hotel Standards
After a long day exploring a new city, hotel guests are looking for a way to unwind back at the hotel. It is commonly expected that hotel rooms be equipped with televisions with a reasonable channel offering, the main desire being local television channels. For other content guests already have access to their own through services such as NetFlix, Amazon, Hulu, and others. For hotel owners, owning their TV delivery solution or enterprise video solutions is an easy way to minimize and eliminate recurrent costs.
Hotels can save money by eliminating cable TV or satellite TV subscriptions and switching to OTA (over the air) broadcast signals and sharing (multicasting) them on their IP networks. Simply put offer an IPTV solution. This solution offers local channels and a way for guests to access their content typically by using a casting feature. This solution also gives the hotel a better image over hotels with the older inexpensive cable networks.
The Simplicity in the Technology
Enterprise video content management has come a long way in a very short time. A hotel only needs a LAN or WAN Ethernet network with a connection to each room’s TV to provide unlimited TV access. This can typically be achieved through WiFi as they can easily handle video traffic. Frequently these are in place already, offering a “plug-and-play” solution. This network combined with the right equipment from vendors like Niagara Video can lead to a powerful cost savings IPTV solution.
Because of the advent of digital television, it is much easier to keep broadcast signals in their original quality. Simply converting these signals to IP for easy, flexible, and inexpensive transport is a powerful tool.
The New Normal – for Television
American TV stations all broadcast in high-quality HD video. Most stations broadcast sub-channels in addition to their primary broadcast and frequently stations also broadcast additional high-quality SD programming. Many channels can broadcast four or more programs.
Nearly all geographic markets across the US have multiple stations broadcasting content over the air. Some of the available networks include ABC, CBS, NBC, Fox, PBS, CW, Telemundo, and Univision, just to name a few. Subchannels also broadcast include networks like MeTV, MyNetworkTV, PBS kids, Court TV, Antenna TV, Rewind TV, True Crime, Court TV, Grit, Laugh, Bounce, ION, Decades, and many more.
All these OTA options mean there are 24 or more channels in various geographic markets at any time. These channels are available for free viewing and can be used to provide a cost-effective IPTV service within hotels.
Making the Switch
Most hotel visitors are not using in-room services to a great extent these days. Guests typically watch TV in the morning before departing for the day and at night before they go to sleep. People’s ability to stream content on their own devices like phones and laptops have further diminished the need for in-room entertainment content.
Niagara Video has cost-effective 1 and 2 RU rack-mounted equipment that can take as many OTA channels as there are in a market and convert them to IP for easy transport within a hotel. Niagara Video also has a lot of experience setting up these devices and can find the right setup box for any hotel’s requirements.
An easy add-on to these IPTV solutions using OTA broadcast channels is adding Digital Signage or Barker Channels to a hotel’s in-house IPTV system. This Digital Signage or Barker can provide hotel information, local information and can also be used for local advertising. This can be an additional revenue-generating opportunity for hotels.
At Niagara Video, we are always ready to discuss if these solutions will work for your specific needs. We’re happy to have a conversation and brainstorm with you to see how we might be able to save your hotel recurring expenses related to your TV services.