Teledex's iPhone IP might be in your next hotel room
posted October 29th 2005 6:52PM
It's no secret that the cellphone has been a disaster for the hotel industry. Hotels had gotten used to raking in
fat profits by gouging guests making local and long-distance phone calls from their rooms, but now that most travelers
carry a cellphone they've had to get used to the reality that most people never even touch the landline in their room,
except maybe to order room service (supposedly shadier hotels
have resorted to installing cellphone jammers to try and force guests to use the phones in their room). We doubt
this'll do all that much to turn back the hands of time, but Teledex just introduced a new web-enabled VoIP phone and
backend content management system designed specifically for the hotel industry that offers "new ways to generate new
revenues." The iPhone IP isn't very creatively named, but it does sport an LCD touch screen that can be customized to
provide easy access to information about the hotel and local attractions, news, weather, hotel information, etc (it
sort of reminds us of Verizon's new One info appliance).
Anyway, the idea here apparently is that guests will be drawn to use the phone by the richness of its offerings and
that because of that local businesses will pay to have their ads on their phone's screen. Or something like that.
[Via Search Engine Journal]
I dont think this is well thought out... guests are NOT gonna be pleased if the LCD screen is lit up all night, and they are gonna resort to unplugging the thing. Advertisers will be pissed, and will stop paying to be there. Hotels lose even MORE money.
The hotels will have the same problems some day with internet access when wireless internet thru the cell companies is reliable enough that everyone uses it instead of relying on wifi hotspots.
They already have this in Langham Hotel in Hong Kong.
yeah i was gunna say, wont guests be pissed off at the "mini tv" on their phone being lit up all night? throwing a tshirt over that makes the ads unviewable, everyone loses money.
Hmmmm.....a "turn off the screen" button?
Guests still probably wont use the phone is hotels charge their normal ridiculous rates for use. The best thing hotels could do is make deals with local businesses to pay a premium for the phone calls for being listed on the phone. IE, the the guests would make a call to any business (restaurant, show, whatever)thats listed on the phone menu without charge, it would be the receiving end that pays for getting the guests money. It would be a great way for hotels to skim a little revenue from all that take-out that guests order. The only problem is that making it so easy to order outside food might bastardize a hotel's own room service business.
Most travelers here to the states from other countries are almost always on global cell phones to start with, asia and europe have better cell phones then us to start with. Most American travelers, hell most Americans can't live w/out their cell for more then an hour.
I've stayed in a few posh 4 and 5 star hotels in the last month from Boston to Miami, we used the hotel phone only to call the front desk to have valet bring our car around or get get a reccomendation on a restaurent
Folks, the iPhone does have a light sensor that first dims the display after a certain time, the turns it off automatically in a darkened room, just to address the "night light" hassle feature.