5 Ways to Use Digital Signage in Hotels

Like all businesses, hotels and those who manage hotels are always searching for ways to improve their business, improve customer service and the customer experience, and in general, make their hotels a place that people will rate highly, recommend to others, and return time and again.

One of the best technologies available for improving the functioning of a hotel and the customer experience is the use of digital signage and digital signage solutions.

With digital signage, a hotel can improve internal communications, increase hotel guest engagement and customer satisfaction, provide easy to comprehend way finding content, achieve heightened marketing potential and so much more.

While there are truly countless ways that a hotel can effectively make use of digital signage, this article gives the example of five tried and true ways that a hotel can use digital signage to optimize their business functionality and guest experience.

With these ideas in hand, you will easily be able to see how you can integrate hospitality digital signage throughout all parts of the hotel business.

What Is Digital Signage?

Digital signage involves using digital display screens, such as TVs, LED Displays, and LCD displays, along with digital signage software or media players in order to display digital content, such as images, text, animations, social media feeds, video walls, digital menus, infographics, real-time updates on upcoming events, inspirational messages, testimonials, wayfinding signs, interactive materials, and so much more.

Moreover, digital signage displays can range in size from billboards to tablets, so they can be strategically placed for a variety of purposes, making digital signage a dynamic and powerful tool for conveying information, and efficient communication to groups both large and small, and promotions.

As you can probably tell from the description of digital signage, there are simply so many ways that digital signage solutions can be used for hotels, from check-in to internal communications to digital concierge functionality. Below, we list some of the best uses of digital signage in hotels.

5 Ways to Use Hotel Digital Signage

1. Use digital signage for wayfinding and highlighting site amenities

One of the most powerful functionalities of digital signage is that it allows a hotel to convey a lot of information with easy-to-understand visuals and descriptions. When a hotel guest walks into the lobby, it should be the goal of a hotel for the guest to have all of the information that they need at their fingertips.

A great example of digital signage for these purposes is a large display in the lobby that highlights all of the hotel's amenities on a map or blueprint of the hotel. For example, if your hotel has a pool or a lounge or a designated meeting room, the hotel guest can easily see, not only that you have such amenities in your hotel (which is important enough) but also where to find those amenities.

Gone are the days of wandering around a hotel in the hopes of stumbling upon the amenity that one is looking for. When a customer has all that information available in front of them in image and text form, the whole experience of staying at the hotel will be improved. However, wayfinding is not constricted to the hotel itself.

You can also use hotel digital signage as an interactive kiosk that highlights directories and interactive maps of the surrounding area, with recommended restaurants and other establishments nearby.

In this way, digital signage can work somewhat like digital concierge services, which can actually be more effective than a human concierge in many ways, because with an interactive map, people can use a touch screen to click on establishments and view reviews and menus.

When a digital signage digital concierge is combined with the in-person concierge, this forms the perfect combination that enables the customer to get all of the information that they could possibly need. This has to potential to really help guests and improve the customer experience.

Here is another related point: your hotel can actually make money by recommending restaurants and other nearby businesses. Many local businesses will be willing to pay for their business to be highlighted on a digital signage map with recommendations.

Of course, digital signage also allows screens to be dedicated solely to advertisements to create an alternative source of revenue, but this discussion is just meant to highlight all of the possibilities made available by digital signage wayfinding functionality.

2. Optimize internal communications with a digital signage system

Digital signage is sparking a revolution in internal employee communication. By using digital signage, employers or managers can communicate and share information with their employees easily and efficiently.

Not only can digital signage displays be placed all around the hotel so that all employees can easily access the information and directives from above, but this information can also be made much easier to understand than one might expect from an email.

This is because digital signage has the functionality to display both text, video, images, graphs, animations, and much else all on the same screen. In this digital age, it has become clear that visuals greatly increase the amount of comprehension and memory that a person has when digesting information.

When employees clearly know what they have to do and what is expected of them, they are much more likely to do their job better. This should be clear: it is easier to do almost any task when one knows what they are supposed to do. When employees perform their job better, the hotel guests are the ones that benefit, since they will receive better service and will have their needs better met.

3. Optimize in-hotel marketing, increase customer engagement, and spread brand awareness with social media walls and customer testimonials

Once a customer is in the lobby of your hotel, the need for marketing does not stop, and digital signage solutions are some of the best technologies for in-hotel marketing.

One marketing tactic that can greatly increase customer engagement is to have a real-time social media wall, where people can see what others have posted about the hotel. If your guests are talking about good experiences or posting aesthetic pictures of your hotel on social media, this will likely help turn a potential guest into a paying guest.

Moreover, social media walls can increase customer engagement. If they see that other people are posting about the hotel, they may be prompted to make their own posts about the hotel on their social media apps and get the joy of seeing their posts appear on the social media wall right in front of their eyes. This signifies to the customer that their experience and input is valued.

Moreover, increasing the number of posts on social media about your hotel spreads brand awareness, and this is an effective form of word-of-mouth marketing, which can be highly effective. People are much more likely to stay at a hotel in which someone they know or follow on social media platforms had a good experience.

Finally, you can combine social media walls with customer testimonials, and this is another great source of in-hotel marketing. You can showcase a picture of a customer who had a great experience along with their testimonial in text.

This helps put a face to the marketing and makes the hotel seem more personable and approachable. Maybe it will even prompt a happy guest to give their own testimonial which, like the social media wall, increases customer engagement.

4. Use digital signage to highlight special offers and hotel events

One of the best uses of digital signage, as we have previously discussed, is the ability this technology allows for conveying information to hotel guests in an eye-catching and understandable manner.

Some information that a hotel will be sure to want to convey to its hotel guests is information about any events that the hotel might have going on. Additionally, your hotel can use digital signage to highlight special offers or rewards programs that the hotel is offering.

Sure, this information could be shown to hotel guests with placards or spoken by the live concierge, but digital signage allows for videos, animations, and eye-catching images, so the guest will be sure to pay attention to what is being offered.

One of the great things about digital signage solutions like Loop TV is that when you get their media player and digital signage software, you have access to tons of templates that help you design your digital signage content. So you do not need to be a digital designer to create digital signage content that will be sure to please your audience.

If you merely tell a hotel guest about an event, it is likely that they will forget about it, or will not realize that it is something they would be interested in attending based on the description alone.

People are more easily able to gauge what an event will be like through images, and through visual content, their interest in whatever event is taking place at your hotel will be greatly increased when these events are at least partially advertised through visuals.

An event need not be something huge. It could simply be a breakfast that is taking place at the hotel restaurant the next morning. In a case like this, you could have a digital menu board in the restaurant but also in the lobby, so that the guests can decide if they are going to want to eat the food that your hotel restaurant offers without having to step foot in the restaurant.

A digital menu board also has the added benefit that it is easily changeable. When the food that the restaurant is offering changes, either through a total menu change or update, or a change from breakfast to lunch and then from lunch to dinner, you do not need to keep replacing the menu but can update it digitally with little effort and little to no cost.

5. Use digital signage to keep your guests entertained and reduce wait time

The great thing about digital signage is that it can play a major role in keeping your guests entertained while they are waiting in the lobby for check-in. You can play all sorts of content, from sports to music videos.

Digital signage has been shown to reduce perceived wait time, so keeping your guests entertained while they are waiting for check-in can greatly improve the customer experience. You can also use digital signage in your hotel's bars, cafes, or restaurants. While people are waiting for their food or drinks, this wait time can be greatly decreased if they have something entertaining to watch.

Of course, the entertainment does not end once they get their food. People love to eat food and watch food, especially if they are grabbing drinks with friends or business associates. The visuals can either be the main focus or can form a background that anyone can pay attention to in pauses in conversation.

The main point is that digital signage is truly great for increasing guest experiences through entertainment. People don’t like to just wait around, so reducing perceived wait time is a serious achievement made possible with digital signage technology.

Making the Most Out of Hospitality Digital Signage

There are so many incredible uses for digital signage in a hotel that employing this technology can be nothing less than a revolution in how your hotel operates and how your hotel guests experience your establishment.

From conveying important information to in-hotel marketing, to wayfinding, to advertising, and to improving internal communications, digital signage is seriously one of the most promising technologies for hotels.

Another great thing about digital signage is that it is relatively easy to integrate into your hotel. As long as you are willing to put down the money for digital signs and go with a reputable digital signage solution, the payoff for such investments can be nothing less than huge.

Digital signage works on so many different types of displays, from ipads, to large LED panels, so you can strategically place these digital signage displays all around the hotel for the best effect.