September 21-23, Philips has hosted over 220 industry professionals from across the world to launch its latest range of dedicated hotel TVs. After hosting four successful White Box Experience events over the past weeks in London, Paris, Milan and Amsterdam where over 600 customers have witnessed Philips’ MediaSuite with NetTV for hotels, the Hotel TV division from Philips brought together the complete industry at the UNESCO-listed ‘Dome Church’ at the Renaissance Amsterdam Hotel. The two-day launch event was moderated by Ted Horner and the speaker line-up consisted of NH Hoteles’ CPO, Pedro Martinez, Quadriga’s CEO Roger Taylor, Ian Millar from EHL, Martin de Neuville from PVCP, Olivier de Montchenu from Euronews, and Michael Zetterlund from Nordic Choice Hotels. — Photo by TP Vision
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Today, Philips Hotel TV, the leading provider of TV solutions to the hospitality industry, further reinforced its commitment to innovation by introducing its 'CoCreation Expert Team'. This panel of independent industry leaders is bringing together years of expertise to test Philips products and offer insight on how Philips can continue to develop market-leading solutions to enhance hotel guests' experiences. The team includes senior management from major hotel partners Starwood, Marriott and Accor; leading hospitality industry consultants Ted Horner and Bryan Steele; and Ian Millar, of Lausanne Hotel School.

Quotes from the CoCreation Expert Team:

About joining the team...

Ted Horner: As a person who's spent most of his life as an independent technology consultant, the opportunity to work with a vendor to help with the design and creation, as an incubator of ideas, is too good of an opportunity to pass up. I'm certainly heavily involved in in-room guest technology and TV, today, is an integral part of that.

Bryan Hammer: I joined the CoCreation Team because I think it's a fantastic idea, and actually pretty innovative, for a supplier to engage a hotel and get their feedback while in the development stage of a product. It's something that doesn't happen a lot in our industry and I think it should happen a lot more. It's great to have the back and forth engagement and open discussions between consultants, hoteliers, vendors and developers.

Ian Millar: [As an industry,] we're not very proactive when it comes to technology and we need to be. Our guests of today and the future are going to look at tehcnology as part of the [in-room] experience that we are creating. That's why I got involved with the CoCreation team.

Bryan Steele: I think being a part of the CoCreation team is interesting because it's bringing together Philips as a manufacturer with experienced consultants,a hotel school and hoteliers to talk about where this product should be going, where we think the market is going and if this product is going to meet that market need.

About MediaSuite...

Ted Horner: [MediaSuite] is a great product. As we move away from video-on-demand in hotels, everyone is looking to access content over the internet. The MediaSuite TV from Philips is a perfect vehicle for people to access their own content over the internet.

Bryan Hammer: The Philips MediaSuite is completely innovative. It's designed for a new age of customers that are coming into our hotels, that are used to having new gadgets and technology, and are looking for ways to access their content online. Up until now, we haven't had a really efficient way to enable guests but with the apps and content on MediaSuite, we're able to give the guests what they want, which is to access their content online.

Ian Millar: It's cool! I've always said that you can have the greatest technology but without decent and original content, it's just a screen. Bringing in different types of content in a different way is something new that our industry needs.

Bryan Steele: I think NetTV will bring access to some of the interenet sites that are difficult to deliver. [Bandwidth issues aside,] NetTV is really starting to address that commercial and financial challenge of getting this sort of application and capability into hotels, cost effectively.

To learn more about last month's Philips MediaSuite TV launch and research showing that more than half of travelers would rather book a hotel with internet-connected TVs, visit: http://t.co/MBfOJxAN

About TP Vision

TP Vision is a dedicated TV player in the world of visual digital entertainment. TP Vision concentrates on developing, manufacturing and marketing Philips branded TV sets in Europe, Russia, Middle East, Brazil, Argentina, Uruguay, Paraguay and selected countries in Asia-Pacific. We do this by combining our design expertise and innovative Philips TV heritage with the operational excellence, flexibility and speed of TPV Technology. With these combined strengths, we bring high-quality TV sets to the market: smart and easy to use with sophisticated styling accentuating i.e. new materials and slim design. We believe in creating products that offer a superior TV experience for consumers. With Philips TVs, TP Vision is a global leader in the hospitality market. Based in Amsterdam, the Netherlands, TP Vision is the exclusive brand licensee of Philips TV for the above listed countries. The TV Company is 70% owned by TPV Technology, headquartered in Taiwan, and 30% by Royal Philips Electronics, headquartered in the Netherlands. TP Vision employs close to 3,100 people in several locations around the globe.

Tom Ringhs