Six months from the launch of NeyavaOne and Jamie Moore, Enterprise Sales Manager, Nevaya, reports that hotels are seeing the revenue-earning potential of the black box in the corner.
“Historically, the sector has underestimated the power of the TV as a marketing tool. It is seen as essential to a room and certainly being able to add streaming is increasingly viewed as a requisite part of the offering, operationally, but it is only recently that the marketing opportunity has been embraced.
“This is a reflection of hospitality in general, where the focus tends to be out of the room rather than within it. Hotels consider the TV be just a piece of technology, which is only of interest to the guys with the screwdrivers and the fleeces who go and install it.
“It was the luxury sector which first woke up to what else the TV can do, as we have found across Europe, the US, Middle East and Asia Pacific. They realised that, if they were to make a decent ROI on the installation of a new system, they needed the involvement of marketing. As is it, the product is streamed through the cloud, so is easy and cost effective to install, with the minimal amount of hardware and all the benefits in terms of scalability, but they could also see the chance to bring marketing on board and create a new revenue stream.
“With the TV acting as a communications tool, not just entertainment, a hotel can feature advertising, can upsell, cross sell, deliver information, everything you need to generate ancillary revenues. Creating a successful strategy requires the expertise of marketing, not IT, who can deploy their knowledge around fresh and interesting campaigns. You need the buy in of marketing.
“The user interface is key to the success of the project and we have been able to create brand-specific interfaces which have helped marketing to understand what can be done, to really make the TV work for them. It is entirely cloud based so they can manage content from a centralised location at brand, or hotel level.
“It’s true SaaS, which gives marketing the flexibility they need - and crave - to be both responsive and proactive. This product can then become about owning, controlling, enhancing your brand, not just a piece of technology.
“Guests already understand the systems because they are used to interacting with their own TVs at home. Offering streaming means that you are giving the guest what they want in terms of being able to access their own content, but giving them this enhanced product means that they can also communicate with the hotel and order food or book treatments, using the TV as they would do domestically.
“When the TV is just part of the IT budget, it can be harder to sell and an additional cost line for the owners. When it is part of the brand offering and part of telling that brand story, it also comes under the auspices of the wider brand and is then often covered by the brand fee, or the cost is at least spread across departments.
“And of course, if you get it right, it can easily pay for itself.”