Holiday Inn Gaithersburg, MD and Towneplace Suites Fort Lauderdale, FL are Latest Hotels to Choose EscapeWire Solutions for HDTV Programming April 28, 2010

The 300 room, full-service  Holiday Inn Gaithersburg and the 95 suite Towneplace Suites in Fort Lauderdale have become the most recent hotels to select EscapeWire Solutions as their preferred provider for HDTV free-to-guest programming.  The hotels, which are owned and managed by the B. F. Saul Company, headquartered in Bethesda, Maryland will both be installing brand new 32” HDTV’s in every guestroom and suite within the next 30 days.  EscapeWire Solutions has been selected as the provider and will install DirecTV free-to-guest, satellite service which will deliver a minimum of 14 full HD channels to each hotel as part of a whopping 76 total channel lineup.  Jim Walent, the Director of Capital Asset Management for BF Saul Company decided to upgrade the hotels in advance of requirement deadlines issued by the brand.  The hotel management felt that HDTV’s and programming could deliver a competitive advantage in some pretty tough markets and EscapeWire made it easy by contracting to handle all installation of programming hardware, HDTV’s and managing all of the ongoing support for the system.

Walent said… “We felt this was the right time to upgrade both of these hotels’ TV’s to HD.  EscapeWire was able to show up with a solution that allowed us to maximize the amount of HD programming we were going to install while simultaneously keeping the price below what their competitors were able to offer.  We are pleased with this solution because it allows us to have more HD options and, indeed more total channels than just about any other hotel in our markets.”

The EscapeWire free-to-guest DirecTV service was attractive to the hotel’s management team because the solution is not encumbered by pay-per-view video services, which are no longer being offered at all by either hotel.  “Why bother with it…”, Walent said, “when we are no longer seeing any significant revenues from movie sales but the front desk would still have to go through all of the same charge-backs and service issues?  It’s actually become a money loser for us.  We eliminated pay-movies and switched to “free-to-guest only” at several hotels in the DC market over a year ago and we haven’t heard any complaints.  In fact, people like the additional HD channels we are able to offer without the pay movie system- 14 HD channels are a lot for a hotel.”

Another factor that contributed to the opportune timing for Walent and the hotels to move forward is a series of rebates being offered by DirecTV and EscapeWire, which help to offset the cost of equipment needed to install the HD free-to-guest solution.

About EscapeWire Solutions

EscapeWire Solutions is a full service network solutions provider specializing in technology solutions for the hospitality industry.   EscapeWire designs and installs customized, expandable, Free-to-Guest (FTG) TV distribution systems including High-Definition programming, Digital Signage Solutions, High-Speed Internet access (HSIA) solutions, IP Surveillance/Camera Systems, IP (VOIP) Phone Systems, Structured Cabling, Website Design/Hosting and Managed Network Services including backup and disaster recovery solutions. We pride ourselves on providing our clients state-of-the-art solutions with exceptional customer service and support. Our technical expertise coupled with our hands on hospitality experience helps us to create solutions that solve real world issues within the hospitality industry today. EscapeWire currently has clients throughout the United States and Canada and has installed systems in several independent and branded hotels, conference centers, and universities including Holiday Inn, Crowne Plaza, Hilton and Marriott.  EscapeWire is proud to be an associate member of the IAHI.