As my passion of travel and hospitality grew ten years a go, so did my interest in hotel marketing. My research into hotel marketing then developed until I became fascinated by hotel systems and began working with system developers and delivering training within hotels in Asia.
Slowly, my interest in hotel systems has expanded to encompass all things of a technical nature within the hospitality industry; particularly the nerdy innovations that could be considered superfluous by some but I consider to be ‘funky enticements’.
Latest Innovative Announcement
The latest techy announcement comes from Starwood , who have entered into a partnership with Zinio , a company that digitally published printed magazines. Starwood will now offer a Digital Newsstand to guests in Four Points, Element, and Aloft hotel properties, for free!
My understanding is that the Digital Newsstand will be accessible in guest rooms and at kiosks in the lobby.
The Starwood press release states:
“The digital newsstand, … will offer participating titles including: Caribbean Travel & Life, Destination Weddings & Honeymoons, Field & Stream, Golf Fitness Magazine, Kiteboarding, Macworld, mental_floss, Outside, Outside's GO, PC World, Saveur, Ski Magazine, Skiing, Spa Magazine, U.S. News & World Report, Wakeboarding and Working Mother.
Also, Starwood will be the first hotel company to offer VIVmag, the first interactive digital women's luxury-lifestyle magazine, conceived and designed exclusively to be read digitally.
To access the digital newsstand during your stay, you click through from the internet portal page (on your laptop in your room or on a lobby kiosk) "to the private-label newsstand where free single issues will be featured," pick the magazine you want to read, register for Zinio, and read mags to your heart's content.”
The digitized magazine titles will include animated graphics, easy to read text, account registration, and simple navigation.
You can expect to see the digital newsstands in Element hotels by the end of May and hopefully we will see them at Aloft and Four Points by Sheraton properties later this year. Whether this includes Asian hotels is not clear, but I do hope to see them in at least large cities by the end of the year.
Yet another example of innovation from the Starwood group of hotels!
If you know of any innovative hotel booking software or hotel technology, I would love to hear your comments and reviews. Please get in touch via the ‘comments’ link below or by emailing me at eharradine@hotmail.co.uk.
Thanks for reading (and for your feedback)
Emma
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