Building innovative, connected digital platforms to transform the hospitality experience
Seamless and secure
As one of the world’s largest and fastest growing hospitality companies, Hilton have consistently embraced innovation across their brands, from installing the first in-room televisions in 1947 to pioneering airport hotels in the 1950s. We've worked with Hilton as a digital partner for a number of years, helping to develop propositions and build and manage platforms to reimagine what hospitality means to the connected traveller.
Experience is king
In an age of high consumer expectations, Hilton’s challenge was to win back traffic from online travel agencies and improve the way that guests interact. We were asked to help deliver a vision for a new end-to-end customer experience and introduce innovative new digital products across the journey, pre- and post-sale. We collaborated with Hilton to understand their existing global digital experience, and then worked with teams spanning e-commerce, new revenue development, partnerships, and their loyalty programme, Hilton Honors, to develop a suite of interconnected products. The vision was to create a useful, commercial and differentiated experience for Hilton customers.
Explore
Initially created as a campaign site to promote retail destinations that could be experienced within a weekend, Hilton Explore has evolved into a global e-commerce platform, present in EMEA, APAC, and the Americas. By allowing guests to dream and plan their next vacation, the platform has been responsible for bringing revenue back to Hilton that would previously have been lost to online travel agents. Featuring deep integration with Google Maps and a range of third party data sources, guests are able to easily discover the best destinations, explore things to do, and most importantly select a hotel that meets their needs and budget.
You're Connected
For this project we were tasked with creating genuinely useful experiences that also generated returns for Hilton. Our first initiative was to revamp the post authentication experience when connecting to wifi with a dynamic page that provided guests with news and information on local events, attractions and hotel amenities. Alongside this, it added a commercial benefit to an otherwise wasted part of the customer journey for Hilton. Initially developed as a pilot to 75 hotels in New York, the platform was quickly rolled out to all properties, with tens of millions of page views each month.
In-room TV
Imagining a more connected, useful and integrated in-room TV experience required us to utilise existing data sources and integrations whilst also putting Hilton in control of the commercial opportunities presented by the platform. Working with LG, we developed a proof of concept solution using web-based technologies and APIs that ran on the LG OS, removing the need to install and manage expensive hardware. Our work went on to inform the new global standard and interface deployed across the estate.
Component libraries
Our work across multiple teams and departments within Hilton has resulted in us creating a dynamic stack, including a library of modular, responsive React components and flexible data, image and content APIs. This allows us to quickly spin up consistent and dynamic platforms and sites, reducing internal operational requirements and content errors, whilst also providing a reliable data source for other Hilton digital products and services.
