Kempinski MoE

1. case study Kempinski Hotel M all of the Emirates
At your
service
Upholding D ubai’s five-star standards
is no easy task. P rasanna Rupasinghe,
Director of IT , Kempinski Hotel M all of
the Emirates, launched a seamless
guest-facing application powered by
contemporary IT infrastructure that could
deliver first-class HDTV and hotel services.
W
ith over 300,000
guests from around
the world visiting
annually, five-star
Kempinski Hotel Mall
of the Emirates has a duty to provide
a first-class stay for its guests. This
includes everything: food, room
quality and service, and, now more
than ever, technology services.
Kempinski MoE’s Director of IT
Prasanna Rupasinghe appreciates
that being based in Dubai – a world
leader in terms of hospitality and
service – brings added pressure
and expectation to the business.
“Most hotels around the world can’t
compete with what Dubai can offer,”
he says. “Even the best that the U.S.
and Europe can offer is often not up
to our standard.”
The average guest at Kempinski
MoE brings four or more devices for
their stay, meaning roughly a million
pass through the hotel every year.
In addition, the hotel’s 500 staff
members bring additional strain to
the network.
In the latter stages of 2014,
Rupasinghe decided that the best way
to bring all the hotel’s services and
facilities to guests through technology
would be through an upgraded
infrastructure, that could power a
cutting-edge mobile application. The
Interactive Customer Experience
(ICE) app would be integrated with
the hotel’s digital TV platform,
automated guest servicing platform
and room management system.
This would enable guests to stream
TV content, access high-quality
wireless Internet and deliver service
requests through any mobile device.
“We wanted to combine content
delivery, virtual systems and gaming
applications into a single platform,”
he says. “It would have to be a link
between the guest and the hotel.”
Rupasinghe, like many other
ambitious IT decision-makers
working in the hospitality industry,
faces a balancing act when it comes
to satisfying the needs of guests
“We had one
application for
each business
process, and
some of our
processes
were still
completely
manual. T his
situation
crippled our
ability to
grow.”
of all ages. This would need to be taken into account when designing a user-friendly application. “I’m sure
the typical outsider may think our
job is a question of implementing
the most advanced technology
products, but it’s not always that
simple,” he says. “We need to
cater for the older generation,
who are used to light switches
and communicating with a human
being, as opposed to a machine. By
the same token, we need to satisfy
millennials, who may want to
avoid staff altogether and carry out
bookings through a device.”
The process of designing the
infrastructure that could support
this application was one that had
to be delivered with longevity
and precision in mind. Although
Kempinski MoE already had a robust
IT infrastructure, the ICE app – and
a vast amount of HDTV content in
particular – would place all-new
demands on the hotel’s network
and IT resources. With this in mind,
Rupasinghe drew up a comprehensive
roadmap. “We built our new capacity
with the potential to grow for the
next four to five years,” he says. “It
was important to accommodate new
bandwidth needs, and remove the
network’s complexity.”
One of the key initiatives was
to refresh the hotel’s fixed LAN
network infrastructure that consisted
of core, distribution, access and
server farm layers to high-density
virtualised infrastructure. This would
need to have minimal complexity,
and have scalable technology that
could prepare Kempinski MoE for
applications such as full and ultra
HD video, 10GE, and fully secure and
simplified operating software that
could meet PCI requirements.
Opting for a range of powerful
technologies as part of his new
solution, Rupasinghe’s aim was to
deliver ‘bandwidth on-demand’ to
the hotel guests. This encompassed
a high-speed Internet offering from
Rivernet, Avaya’s Fabric Connect
32January 2016 January 2016www.cnmeonline.com www.cnmeonline.com 33

2. for shortest path bridging, which
“removed complexity, increased
resiliency and increased availability”
and an Aruba Wi-Fi controller
upgrade. All this was brought
together with the VSoft Iris digital
platform, the means for delivering the
app to the customer.
Rupasinghe successfully
implemented the necessary
infrastructure over the course of
2014 to meet his expectations of
ICE’s delivery, but reaching that point
was not entirely plain sailing. “We
underwent a rigorous testing process
to ensure that every scenario on ICE
was catered for,” he says. “Things had
to be standardised so as to ensure
smoother operations at the back end.
The front end, building management
and guest room management require
different pools of technology, which
had to be integrated to ensure the
app’s successful delivery.”
Furthermore, with downtime
unthinkable for Kempinski MoE,
this testing had to be carefully
timed. “The hotel is not a new build,
and our tests had to run while the
hotel was also running, so this was
tough,” Rupasinghe says. “Rooms
couldn’t be made ‘out of order’ so
we had to be swift in deploying
our configurations when we had
the chance - when a room became
available for a short timeframe.”
The platform has since provided
a huge service enhancement by
allowing guests to interact directly
with staff, and make service requests
regardless of whether they are in the
hotel’s grounds. “This has helped in
serving guests in a timely fashion, and
has reduced the average time to fulfill
guest requests by almost 20 percent,”
Rupasinghe says. “We have also seen
a substantial increase in room service
orders, which is a great sign going
forward. We expect the ICE app to be
self-sustainable
through its
proven revenue
generation
capabilities.”
From an
operations
perspective, the
app has also
made life easier
for the hotel’s
employees.
“Our system
knows which
room should
be served
when, so our
staff are able
to deal with
requests in the
most efficient
manner
possible.”
The app has
also provided
Kempinski
MoE’s marketing team with a fresh
advantage – by tying up agreements
with a range of retailers in the
conjoining Mall of the Emirates,
targeted ads can now be pushed
through to guest’s devices. “We
already have agreements with brands
including Burberry and Vacheron
Constantin, and are in discussions
with others, including the likes
of VOX Cinemas and Ski Dubai,”
Rupasinghe says. “A lot of our guests
are either shoppers, or people who
have stayed in the hotel solely to
make use of Mall of the Emirates,
so this is something we have to
exploit. The campaign generated over
$48,000 in the first two quarters of
2015, and is expected to generate
more revenue going forward.”
In spite of the benefits that ICE
– and the updated IT infrastructure
– has brought to Kempinski MoE,
Rupasinghe
acknowledges
that praise for
his work has
been scarce.
“In hospitality,
people tell you
when things
aren’t right, and
good feedback
is rare,” he
quips. “The
general rule is
that if people
don’t complain,
things are going
well. It’s not
reasonable to
expect them
to understand
the workings
of the back end
that go into the
services they
experience.
Internet in
hotels is now more important than
having water in each room. You can
go for an hour without water in a
hotel room, but an hour without
Internet creates problems.”
Looking forward, Rupasinghe
draws huge encouragement from
the progress that has already been
made with ICE, but sees room for
development. He is open to the use of
Big Data analytics and a WhatsApp-
type chat feature, as well as
incorporating PlayStation 4 gaming
into the service. “It’s important that
we get to know our guests better
without impinging on their privacy,”
he says. “We have 10 years’ worth of
data, but no means of drawing real
value from it yet. We are working on
completing room controls through
ICE, and should have that completed
by March 2016. The potential of ICE
is huge.”
case study Kempinski Hotel M all of the Emirates
“We need
to cater for
the older
generation, who
are used to light
switches and
communicating
with a human
being, as well
as millennials,
who may want
to avoid staff
altogether.”
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