airangel have announced that more leading hotels are to adopt its unique ‘walled
garden’ wi-fi networks and branded, content rich portals.Radisson SAS
hotels in Belfast and Stansted, together with The Park Inn, Heathrow, will
join airangel’s existing live networks already installed at the Radisson
SAS in Glasgow, nine Malmaison hotels and seven of Malmaison’s Hotel Du Vin
subsidiary chain.

Beyond just offering users with wi-fi enabled devices access to the net via
a standard wireless network, the airangel branded gateway offers genuine
added value to hotel customers, whilst also giving the hotel itself the
opportunity to get much closer to its guests and communicate to them in a
highly targeted and strategic way. Further, most airangel hotel networks do
not operate on the traditional pay as you go (PAYG) shared revenue model -
they are often free or a reasonable rate for guests to use once they have
collected a special branded guest voucher when they check-in.

However, once a guest has logged on they are automatically directed to a
dedicated hotel ‘home page’ that acts as a gateway to the web. But the
hotel’s home page is more than just a passive ‘skin’ that sits over a
web-browser - it is a fully interactive, content driven portal that
delivers hotel customers a raft of local information, services and
genuinely useful information that would be impossible to communicate in a
traditional hotel welcome pack or via hotel teletext.

For example, at the Radisson SAS in Glasgow guests are given access to not
only updated details of the hotel’s own restaurant menus, but also
recommended bars and restaurants near by that are personally selected by
the General Manager, with the understanding that guests may want to venture
further a field. The gateway also contains news and information regarding
all other hotel facilities and services - from a timetable of classes in
the health club to the full specifications of all meeting and conference
rooms. This highly personalised, detailed and easily accessible content is
complimented by tourist information, hotel special offers and a host of
other useful information that can be updated by the hotel in an instant.

Of course, if guests simply want to get online they can easily click
through to a web browser like internet explorer- but airangel have found
that once guests experience the friendly hotel interface most actively
explore it and interactive with.

Commenting on the airangel network live at the Radisson SAS in Glasgow,
General Manager Philip Mahoney said: “Since last year all Radisson SAS
hotels have offered free wi-fi for guests, but since we have had the
airangel portal up and running I’ve been genuinely amazed how may guests
have commented on it positively. Not only is it free for guests to use,
which in itself is unusual, it also delivers a high level of detailed and
useful information that our customers really respond to. With regard to
both business and leisure guests, it has proved a great marketing platform
for our business development and loyalty campaigns, offered a real selling
point in a highly competitive city centre market and overall is an
invaluable communications tool for the hotel.”

Daniel Lister, airangel’s Commercial Director, added: “Our content rich
approach, combined with in some cases free, yet controlled customer access
is set to be a real threat to the simple ‘pay to surf’ hotspot models
currently operating in many hotels and other public spaces. This deal also
reflects how some of the hotel sector is seriously utilising the creative
marketing opportunities offered by broadband, far beyond just giving their
customers access to the web.”

All of airangel’s hotel networks are developed and maintained remotely by
airangel’s team of designers, programmers and web-masters. The secure wi-fi
networks themselves have been developed in partnership with Nomadix, a
leading global supplier of public access wi-fi gateways and services. Based
in California, Nomadix specialise in developing “zero user configuration”
solutions for public access hotspots. This ensures that all users connect
to an airangel network instantly—regardless of their mobile device’s
wireless configuration or pre-installed hotspot ‘sniffer’ software. For
more information visit www.airangel.co.uk.
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