HMA Tech: Video conferencing set for huge growth, predicts Cisco rep

By HMA Staff 22 June 2010

HMA Tech: Video conferencing set for huge growth, predicts Cisco rep

Offering video conference facilities in hotels is set to massively take off in the next few years, particularly in the Asia Pacific region, according to a specialist vendor.

“I think the potential will be tremendous. We believe in the coming years guests will not want to stay in a hotel where they do not have very high quality video conferencing or even telepresence capabilities any more,” Benny Lee, managing director, Unified Communications, Cisco Systems, greater China, said in a panel discussion at the Hotel Management Technology conference last week, also attended via video link by Matthew Jordan, enterprise development manager, Skype for Business.

The trend for offering video conferencing is likely to particularly ignite in the Asia Pacific region, Lee predicted.

“I think the opportunity is huge in Asia Pacific. The number of five star and business hotels in Asia Pacific is unparalled anywhere in the world even beating the Middle East - that alone tells you its potential,” he added.

Video conferencing facilities, such as those offered by Cisco, cost upwards of US$200,000.

In March, Starwood unveiled its first in-hotel tele-conference meeting facilities using technology from Cisco, and has previously stated it plans to introduce Cisco TelePresence in 10 properties worldwide.

The Hotel Management Technology conference took place June 17 in Macau. The event was organized by Questex Media Group, publisher of Hotel Management Asia.

Hi Kishan, Thanks for your

Submitted by Michele Howe on 8 July 2010 - 2:36pm

Hi Kishan,

Thanks for your comment. Benny Lee actually addressed this point in his presentation during the Hotel Technology conference. His argument was along the lines that video conferencing won't reduce the need for travel, but that in the future business travellers will expect to find video conferencing offered by hotels targeted to that market. His exact coment was "It seems almost counter intuitive to have video conferencing systems that lessen people's need to travel to hotels but business travel is still going to be necessary. Nothing beats face to face....but any serious business traveller would not want to stay in a hotel without good broadband condtions...[similarly] we think in the future people will choose to stay in a hotel with good video conferencing systems."

Michele, Editor, HMA

Will these hotels install

Submitted by Kishan on 5 July 2010 - 9:31pm

Will these hotels install the Telepresence systems in large conference halls where companies will pay to use the facilities? If this isn't the case then I'm slightly confused. Surely the main selling point for Cisco's Teleprescence is to reduce the travel costs for a company. If executives aren't travelling to meetings why install $200,000 suites in hotels? There's no doubt that there's a real market in Asia Pacific. China's Goodbaby Group spent well over that amount (see video conferencing case study) installing these systems in Kunshan City, Japan, the US and Europe and cut down their international travel by 75%. I am a fan of Telepresence but would still hesitate to recommend investment to my hotel manager clients.