This sponsored content is provided by Xpodigital.
By Gabe Gilligan, president, Xpodigital
Hotel leaders have poured real capital into digital signage over the last few years. What’s the biggest challenge you’re seeing with those investments today?
Many properties have made real investments in digital displays, including LED walls in the lobby, meeting room displays, digital directories and interactive readerboards. Yet, without a strategy to improve the guest experience and drive revenue, those investments are underleveraged. Guests wander past screens that should be guiding them to amenities and revenue-generating spaces. Event planners ask for digital experiences the property can’t deliver. Advertising and sponsorship revenue that should be flowing never materializes. Meanwhile, the operational load falls on staff who weren’t hired to run a signage network, pulling essential employees off their primary responsibilities. What was sold as a guest experience upgrade and revenue generator has quietly become a cost center, and every lobby refresh or meeting-space build-out just adds more screens to manage.
How are underperforming digital signage investments showing up day to day for GMs and IT teams?
In two ways. The first is financial. A lobby LED wall or a bank of meeting room displays represents significant capital, and when those screens aren’t driving advertising revenue or meaningfully improving the guest and event experience, the return isn’t there. Properties sit on premium digital real estate that should be generating advertising and sponsorship income. Instead, screen time is wasted on generic or quickly out-of-date content. The second is operational. When something fails on a Saturday night, it stays out of order until Monday. In our recent benchmark study of hotel leaders, the most common challenges cited were a lack of clear revenue strategy, technical issues during critical events and insufficient staff capacity to manage screens effectively. All three compound, and they all quietly erode the original investment.
How is Xpodigital helping hotels turn underperforming signage into a revenue generator?
Xpodigital is a full-service digital signage and advertising partner managing over 10,000 screens across the U.S. Most vendors sell you a box and a login and leave your team to handle content, sponsorship sales and troubleshooting. We don’t. When you partner with us, we carefully plan and install signage where it will have the most impact. Our creative, sales and technical support experts then take the full operational burden off your team. For properties where capital budgets are tight, qualifying hotels can access our LED wall revenue-sharing program, where hardware, installation and services are provided with little-to-no upfront capital expense. That turns large-format digital signage from a line item into a profit center, which is a very different conversation to bring to your ownership group. The hotels that will lead in event advertising revenue aren’t the ones with the most screens. They’re the ones with the best strategy, the right partnerships and the ability to say “yes” when the next planner asks for a digital experience.
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