More Personalized Entertainment Coming to Rentals

If 57 percent of business travelers above 30,000 feet enjoy some kind of in-flight entertainment, it turns out this extends to their place of destination as well. And mind you, it’s not just the destination’s programming that concerns them, it’s their own programming choices as well.

It makes sense. If you’re staying in somebody’s house or apartment for a longer period of time, wouldn’t you want to have your own set of TV shows or movies on your Netflix account beamed on someone’s big TV screen, not just on your laptop? Either you get your laptop hooked to the TV or your housing provider offers it to you.

Following trends, it looks like some hotels and corporate apartments are personalizing entertainment even if guests can access their own type of entertainment on their portable devices. Personalizing in this case means having Netflix accounts and other apps embedded now on TV, in new Smart TVs.

The allure of big-screen entertainment is still undisputable.  If you’re a sports fan, you want your games larger than life, even better if it’s on 4K, four times the resolution of 1080p TV and certainly a thousand pixels better than your portable devices.

Or if you want to bring your music with you, imagine the Smart TV in your accommodation with your Pandora playlist? You log in to your account and presto, it feels like you never left home. Some accommodations may also have Apple TV for you to have all your devices accessible on a bigger TV.

Is this really being offered now? Marriott is reportedly letting guests in eight hotels gain access to their Netflix accounts and other streaming services, so it’s really happening.

In one interview, it was also reported that Marriott is inviting leading tech companies and content providers to work with them to design the next in-room entertainment focusing on on-demand programming. So it’s likely we’ll see more personalization in entertainment for travelers, so it will feel like your entertainment is always with you. (DC)