Technology has become a frightening area for hotels, who have been burned in the past by tech which promises ahead of its time and which hotels have found hard to implement across a team which tends towards high turnover. Many hotels are looking for simple solutions which will cover everything they need and they can plug in and forget about.
And, while I can see the temptation, we – and our clients – have found that doing one thing really well has helped us and them deliver exceptional guest experiences, driving valuable long-term loyalty as well as ancillary revenues.
Specialising means that we’re able to pile all of our resources into one thing. This is not to say that our team couldn’t branch out – they’re incredibly talented – but what specialisation really manifests is that every single member of our team is focused on just hotel TV. At the end of the day, a broad spectrum dilutes your ability to do a great job and lead one particular market.
That might sound a bit ridiculous until you realise that there are 25 million TVs out there that could run your content. And there are any number of companies out there that have many different tricks in their box; be it TVs or captive WiFi portals or phones or tablets, kiosks, pre check and post check in. But all those different tricks mean none of them are well practiced. If you’re doing everything, you can’t do everything as well as if you did one thing incredibly well.
The hotel tech stack is enormous, but by focusing in on just hotel TV and, obsessively, the streaming component of that, means that we’re better than anyone else. To be the best is a good thing and we have found that being able to deliver content seamlessly – both the guests’ and that created by the hotel to communicate with the guest – is a niche we’re thrilled to occupy. On-demand television has changed the way that guests interact with the in-room TV; rather than it being an unused block of plastic on the desk, it is now a portal through which guests can access what they watch at home and maybe order room service too, adding to the stay experience and building loyalty.
Increasingly, you become recognised for doing that one thing and it becomes a virtuous circle where you find it easier to come to people’s attention and easier for them to trust you.
Key to our success within the stack is our ability to work well with others and we have a completely open API which allows other systems to seamlessly integrate with us. Integrations are incredibly important. We recently passed the demanding Mews certification process, making seamless cloud casting available to 620,000 rooms worldwide.
Our overall vision is very much around anything that we can do digitally to improve the in-stay experience. But right here, right now, the TV is a hugely untapped screen in every room. We see that as the most impactful way to influence the guest experience.
We’re able to turn the TV on so that every guest walks in and sees big screen digital engagement. Then over 30% of guests now stream their content to the TV during their stay, on average for three times and a total of 210 minutes. So it’s a material part of their awake experience in the room.
At the heart of Nevaya is innovation. When you have a niche, you can go deeper and deeper into the it and explore, whereas if you’re looking at the wider tech stack, that focus becomes diluted. And why would you want to offer a product that’s sort of OK in a lot of areas, when you can go to work every day and create something great?
