VoIP slashes hotelier's costs

Fledgling premium hotelier Pantin Hotels is due to open its flagship hotel in Leeds next week complete with free wi-fi and VoIP telephony throughout the building.

Guests will be offered free internet access through the hotel's wireless network, while staff will be equipped with mobile VoIP handsets that connect over the building's network. Using a VoIP network will save the company £20,000 in set-up costs compared with installing a conventional phone network.

The system has been designed and installed by integrator Lyndos.

Pantin Hotels director of sales and marketing Sally Rouse told silicon.com The Ellington hotel is in the heart of the city's legal and financial district and that a significant proportion of business will come from corporate guests.

She said: "There is definitely a demand from corporate guests for free internet and if we didn't offer it, it would be viewed as a hindrance. Guests do not expect an additional fee to log on in their own room."

Rouse added that there is no danger of free internet access eating into pay-per-view TV revenues, as all in-room entertainment is complimentary in the hotel. Guests can even borrow an iPod from the hotel if they have forgotten their own.

The entertainment and data network for The Ellington - and for other hotels in the chain as they are opened - will be centrally managed from the company's HQ.

Rouse said: "With central control of the systems, it means that we can respond to problems more quickly. It also means that we can bring future sites online much more easily, because the control systems are already in place."

The system will also manage the hotel till systems, which have had to run on two separate terminals to take money from restaurant and bar customers, as well as hotel guests. It will also support the till systems of an associated restaurant run by the company on another site in the city.

The hotelier plans to open up to six hotels across the country by 2012.