In-Room Entertainment Turns Away From TV
1LEN MARKIDAN, a 26-year-old marketing consultant based in San Francisco, is the type of business traveler who forced LodgeNet, the hotel guest-room entertainment provider, to file recently for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection.
Mr. Markidan, who spends 40 percent of his time traveling on business and is an elite participant in the Hilton and Hyatt loyalty programs, takes his MacBook Pro and iPad with him on the road and watches all television programs by streaming them on his laptop, using a portable router to extend the Wi-Fi signal in his hotel room.
?For a lot of people my age and a lot of people in general, the way we consume entertainment at home is changing,? he said. ?I no longer have a cable subscription ? the way I watch entertainment at home is the same way I watch it on the road. I have a Hulu subscription, Amazon Prime and Netflix.?
Guest-room entertainment ?is not an amenity that will drive my decision to stay at a hotel,? he said, adding, ?I?m a lot more concerned with loyalty program perks.?
James Lingle of Highlands Ranch, Colo., a consultant to hotel companies and guest-room entertainment service providers like LodgeNet?s competitor iBahn, observed: ?If you look back, typically the first thing a guest would do when they walked into the door of a hotel room would be to turn on the TV. Now people bring their entertainment with them, tablet-based devices like an iPad, accounts and memberships like Netflix, Amazon Prime and Hulu Plus, and they want to be able to use them.?
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Source: Jane L. Levere (2013). In-Room Entertainment Turns Away From TV, New York Times http://www.nytimes.com/2013/05/01/business/hotel-guests-turn-away-from-tv-and-toward-streaming-media.html?_r=0 published Apr 30, 2013. Viewed May 03, 2013,