Background:
Beach Haus is an expansive property located in the affluent and upscale village of Bal Harbour, Florida, along one of the best beaches in Miami. The property is designed to give guests an at-home experience, going beyond a traditional hotel stay to offer guests spacious living suites, full kitchens, bathrooms, and bedrooms, all complete with all the amenities found at home. With guest stays ranging from a few days to a few months, the TV plays a vital role in achieving its "A vacation that feels like home" promise.
Challenge:
As part of an extensive modernization program, Beach Haus was looking for a solution to update their guest entertainment experience, replacing the existing, costly, and complicated TV setup, which had been resulting in poor user experiences and negative feedback. The owner carried out an immense amount of research to narrow the choices, as he wanted a TV that replicated an at-home experience in a seamless way for the guest, enabling them to watch their own content. He also wanted to minimize the hotel having to subscribe to multiple streaming services as, with the outdated setup, they were subscribing to numerous services, with reoccurring monthly fees, and encountering regular problems that staff had to troubleshoot for guests. In short, the existing setup was not intuitive for the guest, nor efficient for the property.
Solution:
The solution was clear – casting. Beach Haus teamed with PPDS and hotel solution specialist, Hospitality1, working side-by-side throughout the entire process – before, during, and post installation. In total, the team integrated more than 200 Philips MediaSuite TVs in the living room (65") and bedroom areas (55") across all three Beach Haus Bal Harbour complex properties.
"At Beach Haus, we do not compromise on quality or experience" commented Walter DeFortuna, owner of Beach Haus. "We want guests to enter our units and feel like they have never left home.”
Philips MediaSuite TVs provide a night and day contrast to the previous setup. The unsightly and unsecured third-party USB solutions plugged into the previous TVs are no longer required.
Philips MediaSuite TVs come with Chromecast built-in™, putting the guest in complete control of their entertainment experience. Connected securely to the Beach Haus Wi-Fi, guests can now select from their favorite providers – such as Netflix®, Disney+, HBO Max, Hulu, Apple TV+, Paramount, Spotify™ using their own mobile device (tablets, phones, laptops) and personal accounts, and stream in up to 4K directly onto the big screen in a couple of clicks. This starkly contrasts the previous setup, which required a frustrating four to five-step login process, resulting in an often poor user experience and negative feedback.
As well as saving on investments into peripheral hardware, The Beach Haus has also significantly reduced its monthly outgoings, no longer having to pay monthly subscriptions to provide a comparable list of channels and services to guests.
Including Philips MediaSuite has also resulted in instant time and cost efficiencies, valued at more than $10,000 a year.
Julian Verlarde, General Manager at Beach Haus, commented: "The inclusion of Chromecast built-in solves so many obstacles faced by both ourselves and our guests. Times have changed, and each guest has their own preference on how they wish to enjoy their favorite TV shows and movies. They don't want to be restricted. With Chromecast built-in™ to Philips MediaSuite TVs, guests completely control their experience. This is night and day to anything we've seen before."
Benefits:
Chromecast built-in™: Guests can cast their personal content – films, music, gaming, and more – from their personal devices onto the hotel TV, without extra hardware or software configurations.
Netflix-ready: Integrated Netflix enables intuitive access to guests' own accounts directly on the big screen. All login credentials are automatically cleared upon checkout via the hotel PMS.
Personalized content: Making use of the exclusive PPDS CMND content management platform, The Beach Haus can customize the hotel TV welcome screen to tailor to the apartment and guest. This includes individual languages, marketing or messaging, Beach Haus services (bicycle rental, housekeeping, parking, beach chairs), local information (bars, restaurants, shops), or customizing screens to celebrate.
Intuitive: Guests can easily access their content by scanning a QR on the welcome screen, eliminating guest frustrations and necessary calls to the desk. The guest response to the technology has been overwhelmingly positive.