Guest blog by Ella Steele, VP Marketing & PR, WorldVue
Hospitality services provider WorldVue is expanding across the globe: The company has landed more than 100 new international customers in the last 12 months and plans for more than 150 new international customers in the next 12 months. The Houston-based company is targeting 30% non-US revenue within 5 years driven by the need for managed Wi-Fi and in-room guest entertainment services by large hotel brands expanding outside North America as well as emerging regional growth opportunities especially in the Middle East, the company says.
WorldVue already serves nearly 1 million rooms in the North American market for Wi-Fi and video services to hotels, motels, and short stay lodging. WorldVue’s global pursuits – underway for 18 months – have resulted in deals with more than 100 properties serving more than 10,000 rooms. A key target market is quickly becoming the hyper-growth commerce zones in the Middle East the company says.
“Many of Saudi Arabia’s new Giga Projects are expected to attract huge investments as hubs for tourism, entertainment, and business, which means hundreds of thousands of new hotel rooms will be established over the next years. United Arab Emirates and Qatar are also expanding rapidly in the region for the hospitality business, as are parts of AsiaPac, and CALA. UK and Europe are also established markets where our team is working towards transforming technology in more properties” says Chris Coles, Chief Commercial Officer for WorldVue.
“With our extensive experience and established reputation in the hospitality industry, WorldVue offers both existing and upcoming Middle Eastern hotels a unique opportunity to implement modern, personalised technology solutions. These innovations are designed to meet the needs of multi-generational guests, while also helping hotel teams improve operational efficiency.” he adds.
Coles says managed Wi-Fi continues to be the backbone of excellent guest services because everything – including in-room TVs and property management systems – needs to connect wirelessly. New builds will of course be equipped with fully capable networks and IT services, but many existing properties run Wi-Fi networks that are for the most part not fit for purpose or otherwise ready to be upgraded to a new generation of guest-facing technology.
“Older Wi-Fi 4 or Wi-Fi 5 networks – of which there are still many in hotels – are often not able to support today’s levels of video traffic. They often also need security upgrades. Today’s guests expect to be able to bring their own OTT entertainment subscriptions with them, for example for casting to in-room TVs. All of this requires excellent Wi-Fi infrastructure and the right hospitality IT services platform,” Coles says. Most hotels are for the time being opting for upgrades to Wi-Fi 6, he says.
WorldVue says hospitality services involve serving the needs and interests of three distinct groups: Hotel guests, property managers, and the hotel brand. The ‘secret sauce’ in this case is 50 years of experience including some very long relationships with major hotel brands for in-room TV services. WorldVue has a unique perspective to hotel technology with its “Power of One” approach, simplifying operations by offering a unified point of contact for installation, service, and support.
This integrated strategy combines smart Wi-Fi, interactive TV platforms, and contactless services to streamline hotel management and improve the guest experience. Managed Wi-Fi is usually provided using equipment from vendors approved by the particular hotel brand, such as HPE Aruba, Cisco Meraki, or Ruckus Networks.
“The large hotel brands usually insist on deploying specific, approved solutions with defined design parameters. In all cases the planning, integration, and management is all done by WorldVue,” Coles says. The future is projected to see continued migration of purpose-built hospitality networks – for video, data and voice – converge to highly secure, managed IP networks that are capable of servicing all network-based applications.
Don’t miss WorldVue’s President and COO Robert Grosz speaking at Wi-Fi World Congress Mountain View on April 28-30. For more about the event click here.
/Ella Steele
