The in-room tablets from Crave Interactive – the European market leader supplying tablet- and app-based solutions to the hospitality industry – have been installed in AMResorts’ new Secrets Papagayo in Costa Rica, Breathless Cabo San Lucas Resort & Spa in Mexico and Secrets Playa Bonita in Panama. Further installations are scheduled in 2016 starting with Secrets Akumal in February.
Speaking this week, Crave Commercial Director Tim Butterworth said that AMResorts planned to make Crave’s tablets a brand standard for their Unlimited-Luxury®, adults-only Secrets and Breathless Resorts & Spas across the region.
“This is a very important development for us. Crave is already well established in the US; now we’ll have a presence right across the Americas,” he said. “There’s an increasing understanding of the huge value of our in-room tablets in resort settings, and AMResorts has fully grasped that concept.”
AMResorts provides Sales, Marketing & Brand Management services for the Unlimited-Luxury® Secrets and Breathless Resort & Spa brands, with more than 19,000 all-inclusive rooms across the Caribbean, Mexico and Central America, including a rapidly expanding portfolio in Latin America. Secrets Papagayo is one of the most recent openings under the Secrets Resorts & Spas brand and will feature Crave’s T2 tablets and docks in its rooms.
Mr. Gabriel Felip, Chief Operating Officer at AMResorts, said that the Crave tablets offered obvious benefits in an upscale, all-inclusive setting.
“We were looking for a guest-facing technology solution which would fit with the casual yet sophisticated style of our Secrets and Breathless brands, and Crave met those requirements perfectly, both in terms of guest experience and in terms of commercial potential,” he said, adding that AMResorts planned to continue rolling out Crave installations in other Secrets and Breathless Resorts & Spas over the coming months.
Crave’s in-room tablets come preloaded with the company’s unique propriety operating system, Crave OS, and allow hotels to do away with all printed in-room communications and information. The tablets feature direct room service ordering and booking capacities, instantly updateable digital menus and directories, guest communication functions, and vast scope for upselling and push-message advertising.
Tim Butterworth said that the potential of the tablets was particularly obvious in all-inclusive properties with a large array of on-site services and activities.
“Crave first developed its service in the setting of exclusive country house hotels in the UK, where the scope for upselling and promoting in-house restaurants, spas and so on was vast, and that potential has now been seized upon by the international resort sector. At the AMResorts properties we’ll be able to promote their various spa and private beach dining opportunities and their wide array of activities and tours very effectively through our tailored advertising and push-messaging systems,” Tim Butterworth said, adding that Crave had already developed a finely-honed 24-hour international support system through its work with hotels in the US, as well as successful multi-lingual content delivery.
The AMResorts installations will all feature the superfast Crave T2, the updated version of the innovative Crave Tablet, the world’s first tablet designed specifically for use in hotel rooms, which comes with a state-of-the-art docking system created for hotel room conditions.
AMResorts’ Director of IT, Baldemar Romo, said that he had been particularly impressed with the fact that Crave provided its own custom-made tablets.
“We looked at various options when it came to choosing a partner to provide guest-facing in-room technology, and the fact that Crave has their own device crafted specifically for hotel use instead of simply delivering their system via consumer model tablets, was a major factor in our ultimate choice,” he said. “This solution will keep our technology closer and aligned to our business goals, providing innovation to our guests in the rooms, keeping our staff connected with them and increasing the non-package revenue for our hotels.”
