“It’s all about integration and service, not the hardware,” says Derek Bottles, Director of IS for Hedreen LLC, owners and developers of the property. “We want to make the guest feel good about being at this hotel. While we probably do have more wiring and more high-speed bandwidth going to each guestroom than any other property, that’s only a means of delivering useful information and services. And the most useful and memorable of those come from integration with other systems in the property.”

For instance? “We provide Internet access, both via the TV and from dedicated high-speed data-ports (including property-wide wireless coverage), at no charge to the guest because we want them to use it. When they do, they immediately see our own Intranet (formatted differently for laptop or TV display), providing instant access to hotel information, news headlines, weather forecasts, local attractions and so on, without them having to go out and search manually through standard Internet services such as Yahoo! or CitySearch.”

“And by “hotel information”, I mean not just where the restaurants are, but the ability to make reservations there, or to order room service; not just the health center hours, but how busy it is right now and whether the machine you want is currently in use.”

“Group members can check the agenda and meeting rooms for their meetings. For an extra fee, we can connect their rooms into a secure Virtual LAN, link it to their meeting rooms, and even give them access to video recordings of earlier sessions or (eventually) to presentations at the Convention Center.”

“It’s all about thinking how to make our guests’ stays as convenient as possible, in the most intuitive, unobtrusive and fastest ways we can. And that’s all part of being the best.”

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