Smart Hotel Tech Can Take Your Business Conferences to the Next Level

Incorporating smart hotel technology as part of your offering can help to improve communications pre and post-conference, as well as streamline their delivery on the day.

By implementing smart tech, you can assist clients who are using your facilities in delivering a smooth, sleek conference experience for their delegates. Here’s how smart hotel technology can help take business conferences to the next level.

Improving Pre and Post-Conference Communication

Having smart hotel technology integrated into your hotel can help you to provide useful information for your clients and their guests from the moment of their arrival.

You can streamline the conference process by sending out relevant information, such as where to go, itineraries, health and safety information, and details of food and drink options prior to the conference starting. All of which will serve to present a slick, professional impression to attendees.

Smart hotel tech can also be used prior to the event to book people onto the conference, thereby helping with the accuracy of booking and numbers, while it also helps to manage any cancellations too, logging these and keeping potential costs down, such as unneeded catering.

Communication post-conference is also an option, allowing you to notify attendees of future events and encourage them to register attendance. Feedback is also very important at this stage, as allowing participants to identify the strengths and weaknesses of the event will help to improve future delivery, encouraging more people to attend as the event evolves.

Providing a High-Resolution Screen and Fast, Efficient Delivery

The smart hotel technology delivered by SuitePad provides a high-resolution screen on the in-room tablets, from which to present information, presentations, and videos to guests in a seamless and compact format. Some hotels have even opted to supply a SuitePad per delegate, which helps to ensure that everyone has the same view and nobody is restricted – while helping a venue to stand apart from its competitors, with the tablets able to be used time and time again.

The high-resolution screens incorporated into SuitePads means your guests will be able to watch smoothly and efficiently without experiencing pixelated imagery or buffering. This will also help retain their attention, while also avoiding the potential technological frustrations or pitfalls that come from relying on a single big screen from which to broadcast an event. 

Offering up-to-date, cutting-edge technology can help guests form a positive lasting impression of your hotel, as you’ll be regarded as an impressive, forward-thinking venue. Conferences are a popular concept and it's important to make your offering stand out from the crowd – with smart hotel technology certainly helping you do that, alongside streamlining delivery.

Given the need to ensure that conferences fit within the time constraints of a busy schedule, having an efficient form of communication and delivery helps to guarantee that everything runs on time, opening a window of opportunity to include more content than may originally have been thought possible.

Allowing Data and Information Sharing with Conference Guests

Hotels can also use SuitePad in-room tablets to collect and share information and data easily – with both clients who are hosting the event and those delegates in attendance. Post-conference analysis of the data, for instance, can highlight areas that did well whilst also highlighting opportunities for improvement.

Collecting guest data (and subsequent analysis) is also much easier with smart hotel technology and removes the need for traditional check-in processes. For guests, being able to provide the relevant information via a simple and secure platform can improve the guest experience thanks to limiting the risk of any queues on arrival, while it also reduces the environmental cost of paper-based data collection. The ability of smart hotel technology to contribute to wider sustainability objectives will not only align with your corporate social responsibility (CSR) but can also strike a chord with the more carbon-conscious guests.

Enabling Guests to Request Taxis/Food Preferences/Extra Amenities

Ensuring guests’ needs are met helps to provide a more receptive audience by fostering a positive mindset – something that’s extremely valuable when hosting an event.

SuitePads allow for the input of all sorts of personal requests; whether transport enquiries, food/dietary preferences or any extra amenities. This helps to ensure guests are well catered for, with any individual requirements or even allergies covered off smoothly and efficiently.

Being able to log these requests on a centralized system, creates improved staff efficiency too, as they will have to deal with fewer individual guest requests. This means they can focus on providing attentive service, helping to ensure the event runs smoothly.

Smart Hotel Technology Provides a Platform for Planning and Delivering the Conference 

Not just an aid during delivery, smart hotel technology such as SuitePad can also help your conference clients plan and seamlessly deliver their event in the lead-up to it. It allows you, the hotel, and your client who is orchestrating the conference, to communicate clearly before, during, and even after the conference has been hosted and concluded.

It can also facilitate different types of engagement during the conference itself. Participating digitally, and allowing for remote engagement, means guests may be more receptive to new ideas and concepts. For example, allowing guests to input any queries or questions via a tablet device helps to remove any apprehension they might have surrounding public speaking. After all, not everyone likes to put their hand up and comment in front of an audience. By allowing more discretion through a SuitePad, it may encourage attendees to contribute more and engage in valuable dialogue with the conference coordinators. 

Another valuable benefit of a tablet device is that it enables conference organizers to display additional digital content and easily link to further relevant online resources. This in turn helps to create a receptive mindset, with participants able to make informed decisions thanks to more information being at their fingertips. By incorporating supplementary digital content, it can enrich the more traditional methods of conference delivery, something that can really help exhibitors and speakers to get their point across.

Delegate involvement is crucial to a successful conference, and so by offering a platform where those in attendance can engage digitally, you can help to create flows of information that will ultimately benefit all parties involved. 

Providing individual devices for them to do this, or by incorporating BYOD technology to allow them to access information from their own phones, encourages active participation, helping to bring the conference into the digital age and going some way towards replicating the benefits of face-to-face communication.

Alternatively, if you’ve found this blog helpful, why not read our previous blog on how to create a foolproof hotel management strategy?

_{- Published on April 22, 2022}