Hospitality giants in India are planning to go hi-tech to provide personalised travel experience to their guests, reports the Business Standard.

The Indian Hotels Company, East India Hotels, the Leela group and Maurya Sheraton are planning to be up to date with technology. The Taj group has set up a high-tech video-conferencing facility in association with Tata Communications. The group also has Cisco telepresence rooms. Wi-Fi, IP telephony, and radio frequency identification devices (RFIDs) have already been set up in its premises.

Wi-Fi services have been installed by many 3- and 4-star hotels also. Hotel Golkonda in Hyderabad, a 3-star hotel, has installed wireless local area network (LAN) in its premises. Hotel Green Park located in Hyderabad, Vishakapatnam and Chennai, has implemented a Wi-Fi internet system in its premises.

Many of the hotels are planning teleconferencing or video conferencing facilities in coffee shops and business centres, Wi-Fi–enabled rooms and lobby, and internet facilities. They are also planning to implement unified communications (UC) to enable devices to locate and communicate effectively. This allows hotel personnel to act quickly in response to requests from guests. A colour touch screen voice over internet protocol (VoIP) phone would welcome guests when they enter the room.

According to a 2008 Frost and Sullivan report, enterprise telephony sales in the Asia Pacific, excluding Japan, was nearly Rs 850 crore ($194m) in 2007 and is predicted to grow at a compound annual growth rate of 9.4% from 2008 to 2014. The recent blasts in the country have also forced hotels to step up their surveillance systems. X