Tablet computers, flatscreens, 3D game consoles — at this time of the year modern technology will be on many Christmas lists. While iPad & Co. are already part of the basic equipment of technology-lovers, many hotels are going even further. How about room keys replaced by iris scans, mood pads for ultimate light and temperature control, or exercising for your morning coffee?
Iris scanner and iPhone as a door opener
In the hotel Blow Up Hall 50/50 in Poznan, Poland, the guest becomes part of a video installation done by the artist Rafael Lozano-Hemmer as soon as they enter the hotel. The hotel is full of hi-tech devices: conventional room keys and room numbers cannot be found in Blow Up Hall. Instead, every guest is given an iPhone which serves as their room key. The Nine Zero Hotel in Boston, USA, has also introduced keyless entry and uses an iris scanner on the room doors.
Remote-controlled rooms
The citizenM hotel Amsterdam City in the Netherlands has gone even further with remote-controlled curtains, coloured room lighting and electronic control of the air conditioning as well as the usual features of fast WiFi and video on demand. The so-called MoodPad controls all these functions, resembling a futuristic on-board computer.
Exercise for your hot coffee
A very unusual hi-tech experiment was started in 2010 in the Crowne Plaza Hotel Copenhagen Towers in Copenhagen, Denmark, where every guest was given a voucher for the restaurant if they used an exercise bike for 15 minutes and thereby generated electricity for the hotel’s own system.
Digital door peephole
In Silicon Valley, the legendary birthplace of the computer industry, hi-tech is nothing out of the ordinary. In the Four Seasons Silicon Valley at Palo Alto in the USA there are not only wide-ranging WiFi networks and 100Mbps glass fibre connections, but also a printer in each room. Door peepholes are now consigned to history. Instead LCD displays show who wishes to come into the room.
Baltic flair meets multimedia
The Nymphe Strandhotel & Apartments in the Baltic resort of Binz, Germany, offers its guests hi-tech items “made in Cupertino” in all rooms, plus WiFi and broadband internet access, TV, DVD, radio and an iPod docking station. The Nymphe Strandhotel & Apartments is the first Apple Multimedia Lifestyle hotel in Germany which places an iMac in every room for the use of its guests.
Flatscreen TV in the whirlpool
The Sofitel Macau at Ponte 16 is one of the hi-tech hotels in Asia where luxury and state of the art technology meet. Apart from the standard facilities such as WiFi, LCD flatscreens and a DVD player guests are spoiled with rain forest showers. Whoever books the “Prestige Suite” can expect a special hi-tech feature which encourages relaxation: A whirlpool with an integrated TV flatscreen.
Infographic and story from hotel.info, an online hotel reservation service, presents the hi-tech hotels which have already introduced tomorrow’s technology.
Charlie Leocha is the President of Travelers United. He has been working in Washington, DC, for the past 14 years with Congress, the Department of Transportation, and industry stakeholders on travel issues. He was the first consumer representative to the Advisory Committee for Aviation Consumer Protections appointed by the Secretary of Transportation from 2012 through 2018.
