The Somerston Hotels Group has the franchise for a number of Holiday Inn Express Hotels throughout the UK. These hotels offer economic accommodation for business and leisure travellers in convenient locations for city centres and local attractions.
Keen to continually enhance services Somerston Hotels Group realised that many guests would require access to the internet in order to access emails, information and corporate intranets. Traditional wired solutions were not considered to be viable due to the disruption involved in providing cabling to each room as well as issues regarding billing.
Somerston Hotels Group decided upon a Purple Patch Wireless Hotspot solution offering broadband internet access to anyone with a wireless enabled laptop or PDA. Supply, Installation and Commissioning of all of the necessary equipment, including cabling, wireless access points (APs) and gateways were carried out by Electron with the absolute minimum of disruption to the day-to-day operation of the hotels. Electron also provided training to the hotel staff in order that they could efficiently promote, sell and manage the solution to guests. In total over 300 wireless access points were cabled and installed across the hotels.
Each hotel was provided with customer awareness boards, posters, leaflets and desk advertisement cards so that guests would be completely aware of the solution on offer. Guests can pay for access in three different ways: by logging on to the Purple Patch website and paying by credit card, by purchasing vouchers from reception and by mobile phone payments. The hotels receive a percentage of revenue received.
The whole network is remotely managed by Purple Patch who also give support to the hotel guests and staff via a telephone hotline with a local rate number.
Commenting on the solution provided by Electron Mr Keith Griffiths (MD) said “We are absolutely delighted with the Purple Patch Wireless Hotspots. Not only do they provide an important service to our guests but also to our staff, who also have access. The hotspots were professionally and efficiently installed by Electron, who have also ensured that all of our staff are able to provide the highest levels of support.”
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