Villa d'Este, Cernobbio, Italy — Photo by HOIST

Hotel Villa d'Este, recognized as the world's best hotel by Forbes magazine in 2009 and voted one of the best places to stay by Condé Nast readers in five consecutive years, is now making use of Swisscom's hospitality services. Since 1 March 2012, Swisscom's award-winning ConnectedHotel TV solution* is live in all 152 guest rooms. It is supported by an overarching service management that covers all network devices including the hotel's new LED screens from LG Electronics. Swisscom also provides Wired and Wi-Fi Internet service at Villa d'Este.

Located in a magnificent park, amidst flowers, terraces, fountains and gardens, overlooking the blue-green waters of Lake Como, Villa d'Este is a fantastic festival of the senses. The property's two main buildings – 16th century Cardinal's Building and 19th century Queen's Pavilion – accommodate a rich treasure of art work, antique furniture and exquisite room design. Ever since 1873, when a group of investors from nearby Milan turned this private summer residence into a luxury resort, Villa d'Este has been considered a preferred venue for international celebrities from politics, arts and culture. In addition to its magic beauty, Villa d'Este has made itself a name for its unique hospitality offered to every individual guest.

The discrete use of technology

When in 2011, the hotel management looked at a replacement for their digital TV system, the primary intention was to underline Villa d'Este's sublime beauty and aristocratic charm through the discrete use of technology. "Villa d'Este preserves the magnificence of a bygone area and adds all modern comforts", as the hotel brochure states.

Under these conditions, ConnectedHotel TV from Swisscom turned out to be the perfect solution for Villa d'Este: It offers a fully interactive user experience without any extra cabling or set-top boxes – a 'connected' LG TV screen is all that's needed. As such, the hotel does not have to hide additional hardware in a drawer or behind the TV screens. For a hotel like Villa d'Este that wants to preserve its historical authenticity, this underpins a distinct design advantage.

Another essential factor was the guest user interface that fully incorporates the unique guest experience at Villa d'Este. There is absolutely no disruption to the magnificence of the place. Hotel-specific information pages and a hotel video complement the program menu. And for those guests that expect the latest entertainment to be available, a wide selection of HD and SD blockbuster movies can be ordered through the user interface. All videos can be comfortably viewed with Swisscom's Virtual DVD Player, which allows guests to pause, rewind and fast-forward at the flick of a finger. Villa d'Este's video-on-demand titles are available in several languages and updated every month.

When perfection is every day's objective …

As discrete and invisible as it may be, technology is more than a guest amenity at Villa d'Este: It's also a tool to ensure premium service quality at all times. Through the Swisscom IPTV Extranet, IT Manager Giuseppe Totaro has a complete view of all connected network devices and their status in real time. In particular, he can check the status of all 200 connected LG screens on his property. Villa d'Este's Front Desk can make good use of this Extranet feature, as well, by verifying the availability of all live-TV and video programs before actually checking in a guest.

As a top-notch establishment, Villa d'Este continuously strives for perfection in its service delivery. This is why Swisscom has been commissioned to manage its hotel network 24/7: Swisscom is responsible for the maintenance of the entire technical infrastructure, which includes all switches, wireless access points and TV screens. A very interesting innovation lies in Swisscom's pro-active, remote monitoring of all network devices: A specialized service management toolkit enables Swisscom to detect and troubleshoot potential service issues before the guest can even notice them. Should onsite assistance be required, then Swisscom's specialized hotel engineers are less than an hour's drive from Villa d'Este.

Swisscom as a partner – not a solution provider

Choosing Swisscom for its connected TV solution, for High-speed Internet access services and for its 24/7 network monitoring plan, Villa d'Este has taken an important step forward to an integrated service management. Not only can additional IP-based guest services be added into the network architecture with relative ease; Swisscom will also be able to manage multiple applications – including those from third-party providers – on behalf of Villa d'Este. "The difference is that we do not concentrate on a single application only", explains Simone Colombo, Sales Director for Swisscom Hospitality, "but on the network and the IT infrastructure that carries a number of different applications". Hence, in view of emerging guest needs, Swisscom offers Villa d'Este the perspective of a holistic technology partner that integrates and manages all new technology in a 'one-stop shop'.

About Hoist Group

Hoist Group is the complete hospitality partner for hotels, health care institutions and public operations. With more than 20 years of proven hospitality experience, Hoist Group is the market leader in innovative High Speed Internet Access, conference services, TV & content solutions, PMS and back-office software as well as other guest-facing amenities. Many hotel chains, flagship independent hotels and public hospitals have entrusted their IT to Hoist Group. Based in Sweden, the company has offices in a total of 18 countries in the EMEA region. Learn more about the company at www.hoistgroup.com.