Plasma displays, touch panels and dedicated plasma display controllers used to build an interactive hotel guide system with excellent cost performance.

Installation of a plasma display-based hotel guide system in a major hotel in the heart of cosmopolitan Tokyo.

ANA InterContinental Tokyo is a popular hotel located in the center of Tokyo, serviced by direct limousine bus services from Narita and Haneda airports that bring guests from all over Japan and around the world. During a partial renovation of the hotel, the initial plan was to install illuminated panels that would provide guests with information on the hotel facilities and advertise the outlets within the hotel. However, the hotel decided instead to install a hotel guide system built around plasma displays, because they would offer greater convenience and expandability as well as being more effective.
The hotel opted to go with Panasonic displays due to the extensive range of options available, including touch panels, dedicated plasma display controllers and finishing materials.

Dedicated plasma display controllers offer even greater versatility.

Conventional information panels have a number of drawbacks:

• To provide a useful service to overseas visitors, content must be provided in several languages, making the panels less effective and more expensive.
• Along with information panels on hotel facilities, panels are also needed for hotel accommodation plans and promotional campaigns. Such panels take time to create, so information cannot be instantly updated, and a large number of panels are required.

To overcome these problems, the hotel installed vertically mounted portrait display units comprised of 50-inch high-definition plasma displays matched to the expansive scale of the hotel itself and touch panels.
The use of digital media in providing a system for displaying information to guests overcame some important obstacles:

• Multiple languages are supported, so users can select either English or Japanese (with Chinese and Korean to come) as the display language, so a large amount of content can be displayed on one panel.
• Once the content has been created, it can immediately be shown on the display, making updating of displayed information much quicker and also allowing discrete editing of information on specific short-term events.

The plasma display's dedicated controller is basically the same system as a conventional computer, so no special software is needed and a simple, smart system construction is achieved. Considering guest traffic, the plasma displays are installed in portrait orientation at the following locations:
four units at the corridor leading from the entrance and reception desk to the shopping arcade on the second floor, and two units near each end of the escalator (making a total of four units) at the second and third floors, where restaurants are located.

Four plasma displays installed along a corridor in the busy shopping arcade. The information panel to the right in the photo is also due to be replaced by a plasma display in the near future.

In the two general operating rooms, 42-inch high-definition plasma displays are attached to the wall