Hyatt Regency Chicago

Customer Overview

The Hyatt Regency® is one of the most prestigious brands in the hotel industry operating in major cities around the world, with meeting facilities and special services designed with the business traveler in mind. Each Hyatt Regency® hotel is designed and decorated to capture the essence of the local culture. The Hyatt Regency Chicago is in the heart of downtown Chicago, with 2,019 guestrooms, 63 meeting rooms, and 228,000 square feet of space for banquets and various functions. The Hyatt Regency Chicago takes pride in offering their guests the best of everything among luxury hotels - great restaurants, well-appointed rooms and unparalleled service.

Scope

The Hyatt Regency Chicago is a large complex including two separate towers on different sides of Michigan Avenue that are connected by a series of hallways and underground tunnels. The hotel management wanted to help guests and visitors navigate the facility, without distracting from the hotel's décor and design. They also wanted a more effective method of distributing information, such as schedules and times of hotel and local cultural events, maps of the facility, and captivating graphics to promote the Hyatt brand and hotel amenities. They expressed a desire to display real time information about weather, news, and flight information for Chicago's two major airports. In addition to fifty fixed mounted LCD screens, the Hyatt Regency Chicago required mobile screens that could be moved to different locations throughout the hotel depending on the events that were taking place. They also wanted a system that could recognize who was viewing a particular screen and content on that screen to suit the profile of the viewer. Lastly, the management team felt that it would be beneficial to incorporate a live television feed on some public displays, as well as provide guests with the ability to access information on the public displays directly from the television screen in their room.

Omnivex Solution

The Hyatt Regency Chicago chose Omnivex software to provide a complete solution for all of their digital signage needs. Omnivex software was able to handle all of the challenges of the hotel's digital signage network with one integrated system, because it has such a wide range of capabilities. Hospitality Partners, a company who specializes in management systems for hotels, was contracted to implement and maintain the digital signage network and to create the content for the screens. Hospitality Partners has extensive experience managing digital signage networks and had worked with both Omnivex and the Hyatt Regency Chicago in the past.

All of the content for the screens is managed by Omnivex Display software. The central content management component resides at Hospitality Partner's corporate location. From there, Hospitality Partners can design content and deliver it to the Hyatt Regency network. Omnivex software has the ability to acquire, sort, and format real time data through an intuitive interface that does not require complex programming by the operator. Real time news and weather data is delivered to the screens via Omnivex NewsStand and Omnivex DataPipe. Live television is streamed to certain screens and incorporated into the display content automatically.

The software also interfaces with the Hyatt's centralized Envision property management server. The Envision database contains information from around the world about all Hyatt room, meeting, and banquet bookings and schedules. Omnivex DataPipe was able to access all of the information located in the Envision database and display relevant information on particular screens at a specified date and time, automatically with no manual intervention by Hyatt Regency staff.

The ten mobile screens can be placed in different locations depending on what activities are taking place at the hotel. Since the Omnivex software can simultaneously support multiple communication protocols, adding a wireless network for the mobile screens was seamless. The screens are able to access all information from the Omnivex DataPipe network and display scheduled information for the specified location.

Omnivex software allows guests to access all of the information on the public displays directly via their standard in-room television screens. This feature is especially useful for the business traveller to access information about flight status, meeting times and schedules, and local weather.

In order to address the Hyatt's requirement to have custom content displayed to certain visitors, Hospitality Partners and Omnivex proposed the use of radio frequency identification tags (RFID). When an RFID tag is in range of a screen, the Omnivex software recognizes the tag and automatically changes the content on the local screen from the regularly scheduled information to unique content that has been created for that particular viewer.

Omnivex Control software allows Hospitality Partners to communicate directly with all of the digital signage hardware installed in the hotel from their one central location. The software continuously monitors the status of every screen as well as the PC connected to it, without a hotel staff member having to physically check on the hardware. The use of Omnivex Control ensures that the screens and PCs are operating as intended and automates an appropriate notification should a problem occur.

Results

Omnivex and Hospitality Partners worked closely with the Hyatt Regency Chicago to understand their requirements and concerns and implement a digital signage system that supported their core values and satisfied the needs of their guests. By interfacing directly to the Envision database, the system provided relevance to the viewer and eliminated ongoing operating costs. Omnivex software allowed the Hyatt Regency Chicago to help their clients find their way around the hotel and to conference and meeting areas with greater ease, while enhancing the environment to look more modern and technologically advanced. The installation of this digital signage network and the unique capabilities of Omnivex software enabled the Hyatt Regency Chicago to maintain its position as Chicago's leading luxury hotel, assuring its customers the best stay among hotels in Chicago.