Digital signage is quickly maturing as data-driven content, real-time updates, and smart integration become the norm. Two decades ago, hours of coding were required to create a single display. Today, an untrained person can sit down with a content manager and create something professional in a few minutes. As a result, digital signage is growing at a rate of over 8% per year (CAGR). This is especially evident in hospitality industries, where hotels and casinos alike are adopting and profiting from digital displays.
Here, most organizations already offer digital content in the form of “hotel channels” on proprietary televisions, implement their own ad and brochure creation services, and deliver a variety of forms of media. Switching to digital signage makes that data more valuable, more relevant, and more cost-effective, by allowing organizations to deliver everything from room pricing to menus in real time.
Wayfinding
Hospitality industry organizations often face massive issues relating to wayfinding, especially when terrain extends to more than one building. Digital signage offers opportunities to integrate indoor mapping and digital wayfinding, so guests can utilize kiosks and displays for real-time wayfinding.
Depending on the solution, this can manifest as simple maps with smart directions, offering updates on the display based on traffic, real-time accessibility, and route-selection based on factors such as whether an elevator or escalator is working. In others, it can include mobile phone handoff, QR codes to apps or web mapping platforms, or even maps that follow the user across signage to ensure they find their destination.
Smart digital wayfinding is especially useful for the hospitality industry where groups often have to find rooms where they might not always remember the number. Allowing guests to search meeting rooms by company, or private rooms by the name of the booker, can greatly reduce demand on staff while improving customer satisfaction. And, most people actually prefer to use a kiosk than to ask staff, so guests will likely be happier as well.
Messaging
Most hospitality industry organizations have messaging to push out nearly all the time. This can range from schedules to room availability to pricing to deals and much more. A casino could utilize digital signage to share live views of tables with wait lists and updates. Hotels can share upcoming events. Convention centers can push meeting times and schedules offered by guests.
It’s also easy to push out practical real-time information, such as to inform guests that someone is parked incorrectly, pushing emergency information, or to drive sales based on new information like the weather.
Branding
Branding, or creating a positive brand experience, is often key to the hospitality experience. And, digital signage makes it relatively easy to use digital signage to offer hospitality, service, and environment. How? Digital signage implements into the lobby to offer self-check in/checkout, video walls to offer impressive environment background and messaging, and smaller displays to function as self-service kiosks and branding.
This extends throughout the organization, where digital displays can function as door signs and self-service kiosks allowing users to request support and services. In the room, where wall displays and tablets can integrate with online ordering for services and food. And, in entertainment and dining halls, where screens can function to entertain, inform, and create a positive brand experience.
Here, hotels and casinos can choose to implement content for background and mood, infotainment with news, weather, or traffic and public transport data, ads, menus and promotions, or a variety of other content depending on location and intent.
Menus and Offers
Digital signage is the ideal medium to share menus and offers, especially for hotels and casinos offering in-house restaurants and services. Why? Digital signage affords the ability to offer real-time updates to menus, prices, and availability alongside virtual ordering to support everything from optimized queuing to increased sales.
- Optimize lines by tailoring menus based on queue length, weather, and time-to-cook
- Offer personalized choices via digital menus and self-help kiosks
- Drive sales with relevant ads at the right time
- Offer room service without the phone
The primary advantage of digital signage is real-time updates. A good content management system means any member of your staff can update a menu or promotion in real time to ensure offers always reflect what’s available.
Push offers for a quick lunch just before a business conference begins. Offer ads to have food delivered at casino tables. Push sales for warm drinks when it’s cold. Or, update menus in real time as food items go out of stock. Digital menus make it easy to optimize menus for both profit and customer satisfaction.
Staff Support
While the largest advantages of implementing digital signage into hospitality industries definitely lie in customer-facing advertising and promotions, digital signage offers a lot of value to staff as well. Here, applications like rosters and schedule management, team management, virtual whiteboarding and schedules, equipment management, and integration into resource management tools like room booking, fleet management, and more.
This can allow staff to more easily manage services, reducing costs from a backend perspective. And, with digital self-service available to guests on the front end, a good digital signage implementation will mean reduced demand on staff as well.
Digital signage adds value by helping guests, improving branding, and driving sales across the hospitality industry. While your exact implementation will change depending on specific industry (hotel, convention center, casino, etc.), your organization will see similar benefits through similar implementations in lobbies, rooms, and hallways.
Digital signage offers powerful new ways to maximize content you’re already producing, utilize third-party content, and deliver new information in ways that improve customer satisfaction and make your organization money.
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