Whether your hotel targets business travelers, vacationing consumers, or a combination of both, connected devices can make your customers happier and increase profits. These tools help people check-in quickly, find where they're going, and spend more money at your on-site facilities or with your partners and affiliates. Here are some popular applications:

Smartphones and Tablets: Customers can watch a guided tour of popular area attractions led by the hotel concierge, view the latest specials in the hotel restaurant, and stay up-to-date on events or convention-specific news coverage.

Lobby Wayfinding Systems: Guests can use touchscreen directory kiosks to locate their room or an event, and easily map the route to it. The hotel directory kiosk can also print a hard copy, complete with coupons or ads for on-site restaurants and other services.

Room and Event Schedules: Instead of printing paper schedules with each day's event schedule and locations, hotel staff can post the schedules to digital signs. These can be programmed to change automatically based on predetermined schedules, or last-minute changes to the hotel calendar.

Guest Check-In Kiosks: Customers can bypass the front desk and use a self-service check-in kiosk to retrieve their room key, purchase room upgrades, and perform other common functions. By reducing the load on front desk staff, the hotel kiosks make check-in faster for all guests -- even those that don't use the self-service machines.

In-Room Barker Channels: In-room channels can be controlled with the same software that handles the room and event schedules, making it easier to deliver the same information and promotions throughout the facility. Messages can be controlled from the home office or customized on a per-hotel or regional basis.

Here are some articles about these topics: