Hilton is once again looking to technology to enhance the guest experience.
The hotel company announced Thursday that it's currently beta testing a new mobile-centric guestroom it calls "Connected Room."
Utilizing the Hilton Honors app, the concept empowers guests' mobile devices, allowing them to adjust the room temperature and lighting or even change television programming with a few taps on their smartphone or tablet. The high-tech room will be a more personalized space, with guests able to load their Netflix account directly to their in-room TV, for example.
Hilton expects to introduce voice command and advanced preference settings further down the road. Guests could also be able to upload their own artwork and personal photos to display throughout the room for the duration of their stay.
According to USA Today, Connected Room is being tested with a physical remote control at the Hilton Garden Inn in Memphis. The new guestroom experience will roll out in at least seven other hotels during the coming weeks prior to a wider scale launch in 2018.
Hilton said its latest innovation was partly inspired by the success of recently-introduced next-generation features. Hilton Honors members have already checked in digitally 34 million times. Meanwhile, the company has reported four million digital room key downloads.
The high usage rates have established a strong foundation Hilton feels Connected Room can build on.
"Many innovations later, we are once again setting a new standard for the industry by giving our guests a travel experience where the room knows them, and they know their room," Hilton president and CEO, Christopher J. Nassetta said in a statement.
"The technology we put in hotel rooms has to be intuitive, simple and quick to pick up because guests typically spend a limited amount of time in their rooms and we want them to spend that time enjoying the experience instead of adapting to new technology," Joshua Sloser, the company's senior vice president of digital product, said in a statement.
In addition to guests, hoteliers and staff will benefit from the new technology as well. The new rooms will allow guests to conserve energy on their own by syncing the air conditioning with their schedule while providing hotel operators with monitoring capabilities to help reduce the property's environmental footprint.
Connected Room will also ensure staff members are better informed when it comes to guest preferences.
By relying on software updates rather than the installation of new hardware, Connected Room allows Hilton to quickly adapt to ever-changing technology and roll out new features faster.
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