Pan Pacific Hotels and Resorts Extends Global Footprint with Support from Technology Partner interTouch

Pan Pacific Hotels and Resorts began deploying interTouch solutions in their hotels in 2004. Since then, this relationship has grown beyond a traditional client-supplier relationship into a close partnership, with the hotel group declaring interTouch as its “number one choice” for Internet services.

interTouch tailors its business propositions to meet the individual needs of the hotels within the group. The robustness and ease of use of the interTouch solutions and unrivalled end user support result in increased guest satisfaction with limited or no strain on hotel resources. This gives the competitive edge in broadband Internet access that the group is seeking for their hotels.

Pan Pacific Hotels and Resorts is looking forward to expanding interTouch solutions to even more hotels worldwide.

For time-poor business travellers, reliable and fast Internet connectivity is crucial in their everyday lives.

Whether to check email, stay on top of the news or even conduct meetings, business travellers need to stay connected in their hotels, and they are increasingly looking to areas outside of their rooms to do business - in hotel restaurants, lobbies and even poolside areas without the need for reconnecting or paying additional fees.

Pan Pacific Hotels and Resorts understood the need to provide quality broadband technologies as an integral part of its service offerings to guests, and the significance of building networks in their hotels that would meet not only today’s, but more importantly, tomorrow’s demands.

Prior to 2004, Pan Pacific Hotels and Resorts was using multiple solutions for Internet services in their hotels, with some on dial-up networks. Guests were increasingly demanding reliable, robust and easy-to-use Internet solutions that would give them the flexibility to choose where and when to connect.

As a result Pan Pacific Hotels and Resorts made this a top priority for deployment in their hotels. They began a company initiative to implement benchmark network solutions that would cater for fully integrated wired and wireless broadband services for their guests. Pan Pacific Hotels and Resorts was looking for a vendor to support the hotel group globally with a single point of contact and a unified technical platform. They wanted the best provider who could offer consistent service levels wherever their hotels were, with the initial priority being in Asia.

Pan Pacific Hotels and Resorts ultimately awarded the project to interTouch, marking the beginning of a very positive business relationship.

“We had a variety of business situations to cater for – to stay competitive in each market, we needed to consider the needs of each hotel,” said Mark Fancourt, Corporate Director of Information Technology, Pan Pacific Hotels and Resorts. “interTouch was extremely flexible and that has helped us achieve the best possible solution for our Internet services. They bring a whole new level of business competitiveness to our hotels.”

The group rolled out interTouch broadband solutions in six hotels, starting in Asia, providing connectivity throughout the entire hotel, including wireless in the meeting and conference rooms. Implementation took place one hotel at a time, taking one month to six weeks from physical deployment to staff education. Pan Pacific Bangkok was the first hotel in the group to deploy interTouch solutions.

With a business proposition that allowed interTouch to install and manage the entire service to enterprise standards, the group was able to focus on their core business of providing superior hospitality services and at the same time, offer superior Internet services to match.

With the exception of Seattle, where the solution is hosted on the hotel’s converged network, interTouch provided the total infrastructure to all the other installed hotels.

“We have been working with interTouch since 2004 and have built a very close relationship,” said Fancourt. "We have found interTouch to be extremely committed to meeting our needs and ensuring consistency across the Group, which is what we required. They have an understanding of our business strategy and that is why we choose to work exclusively with interTouch.”

“They have demonstrated a level of expertise that is truly impressive and a commitment to grow with Pan Pacific Hotels and Resorts, even setting up an office in the US recently specifically to support our hotels in this market. We are very proud to be interTouch’s inaugural hotel in the US," he added.

Pan Pacific Hotels and Resorts' mantra throughout the project was “All about choice". interTouch gave that flexibility, providing guests with a variety of choices of when and where to be connected to the Internet. Hotel guests can access high-speed and secure Internet from anywhere in the hotel – private rooms, business centres, meeting rooms and public areas. This ensures efficient running of the hotels, both from the guests’ and hotels’ point of view.

interTouch achieves this by providing integrated wired and wireless broadband Internet access to facilitate this mobility, enabling the freedom to roam. With this wired/wireless roaming feature, guests in Pan Pacific hotels are assigned a username and password that they can use to log on to the interTouch network, regardless of where they are. This enhanced mobility throughout the hotel translates into increased effectiveness and convenience for the guests. Charges for all Internet usage throughout the hotel are integrated into an all inclusive bill plan and charged directly to the guest folio for payment upon check out.

For the growing number of business travellers, functionality in meeting rooms can greatly enhance their hotel experience. interTouch provides the technology and support for hassle-free experience for the hotels, conference organisers and participants. The company’s MICE services provide for single, multiple, wired or wireless broadband Internet connections supported by a full suite of services encompassing pre-event technical consultancy, infrastructure set-up, on-site technical support and managing event requirements like dedicated bandwidth.

Business Centres in Pan Pacific hotels are fully equipped with PCs that allow busy business travellers high-speed access to the Internet and web-based emails without having to bring laptops along. The interTouch Self Managed Business Centre solution enables business travellers to access office facilities 24 hours a day, without the need for hotel staff to be in attendance.

If guests need to print documents, the interTouch Internet Printing solution provides the ultimate flexibility. Once connected to the Internet, guests can upload their files to print through the web browser. The selected files are securely sent to the designated printer in the hotel, and guests are provided with an assigned document ID that they use to retrieve their print-outs.

Not only does interTouch provide reliable solutions to hotel guests, the company also offers the hotel a wireless network that supports back-of-house applications. Hotel employees can log onto the same network as guests for easy online access to back-of-house applications that make for efficient and productive hotel management.

interTouch’s extensive after sales support adds further value for Pan Pacific Hotels and Resorts, letting the hotel group focus on the business operations of their hotels. Without having to allocate IT resources for servicing guest Internet connections, staff can focus on other business needs. Ninety percent of service calls are answered within 20 seconds by interTouch’s multi-lingual Helpdesk, which operates 24x7. Furthermore, the company provides proactive network monitoring, dedicated in-country engineers for on-site technical support as well as a dedicated account manager for each of the Pan Pacific hotels to ensure optimum network performance. Every hotel installed with interTouch solutions has seen higher customer satisfaction with Internet services, some by as much as 100 percent.

With Pan Pacific Seattle paving the way into the US market for both the hotel group and interTouch, Pan Pacific Hotels and Resorts plans to further extend its interTouch network.

“We improve productivity by staying technologically current,” said Fancourt. “Pan Pacific is currently reviewing the deployment model for interTouch solutions in all our hotels. We plan to implement iBIS 7.0 Group wide as the opportunity arises in each property. We’re keen to see any new interTouch products, as they have proven to be a reliable and committed vendor, and we look forward to continue building a relationship with them. Our working relationship has been a very positive one over the last three years and we are convinced that interTouch’s products provide us with a distinct competitive advantage.”

 

*About iBIS 7.0 –

iBIS 7.0 is interTouch’s proprietary network access and operations gateway platform specially developed for hotels to provide secure, reliable and easy-to-manage broadband connectivity for their guests.

This advanced system comes with new service features that enrich the guest’s user experience, and provides hoteliers with an intuitive, easily-configurable and highly-flexible web-based content and management interface. The modular system architecture also allows easy adding on of new Internet protocol-based services and options in the future.

iBIS 7.0 is a finalist in the Broadband World Forum Asia InfoVision Awards 2007. The InfoVision Award program recognizes technologies, applications, products, advances, and services judged to be the most unique and beneficial to the telecommunications industry globally.

Headquartered in Singapore, Pan Pacific Hotels and Resorts is a leading hotel management company in the Pacific Rim region. It has a portfolio of 20 hotels (13 managed properties and seven marketing affiliates) with over 7,000 rooms in 11 countries throughout Asia, the Pacific and North America. It has offices in San Francisco, London, Singapore, Hong Kong and Tokyo. Pan Pacific Hotels and Resorts is a founding member of the Global Hotel Alliance.

For more information, visit www.panpacific.com

interTouch is a premier global provider of fast, reliable and secure wired and wireless broadband connectivity services, facilitating communications for today’s business travellers.

Since 1998, interTouch has been serving the hospitality industry, managing more than three million broadband connections each year. Their innovative technologies are available in over 350 hotels and more than 120,000 access points in guest rooms, meeting rooms and business centres worldwide, providing travellers and conference attendees with convenient access to the Internet to enjoy communication, information and entertainment services.

Headquartered in Singapore and with operations throughout Asia Pacific, Europe, the Middle East and North America, interTouch has 15 offices worldwide on these continents. interTouch is a wholly-owned subsidiary of NTT DoCoMo, a global leader in mobile telecommunications technologies.