Hotel lobby screens: welcome messages, events and directions
· 5 min read
A hotel lobby screen should answer the questions guests bring to reception. Where's the event I'm here for? When's breakfast? Is the bar open, and which way is the spa? Show today's events with their rooms, a welcome for any group staying with you, and the times for food and drink, and design it to look as calm and considered as the lobby it hangs in.
Welcome messages
A welcome on the lobby screen is a small thing that guests notice. A wedding party arriving on Friday afternoon, conference delegates checking in the night before, a coach tour, a sports team: each of them likes walking in and seeing they're expected.
Make a welcome template once, in your own colours and fonts, with space for a name and maybe a logo. When a group books, reception copies the template, changes the words, and schedules it for the group's arrival day and stay. In Casty a new layout made from a template is a copy, so the template stays clean for next time. The templates guide shows how.
Always ask the organiser first. Plenty of couples love seeing their names in the lobby, while some companies would sooner their offsite didn't announce itself to everyone checking in, and a quick question at booking avoids an awkward conversation at the desk. If you do name people, take it down when they leave by setting an end date on the event.
Today's events
If you host meetings, conferences or functions, the lobby screen is where people look first. A simple list does the job: the time, the event name (or "Private event") and the room, with a line on how to get there.
That list can come from two places in Casty. If your events team keeps bookings in an online calendar that gives you an iCal address, the Calendar widget can show those events on a layout. Or keep a dataset, which is a small table the events team types into (time, event, room), and show it with the DataSet widget. Either way, several layouts can read from the same source, so the lobby list and the signs outside each room stay in step. Event and meeting room signs for hotels covers the door signs.
Food, drink and the time of day
What a guest needs to know changes through the day, and dayparts let one screen follow that. A daypart is a named slot, like Breakfast from 07:00 to 10:30, that you set up once and pick when you schedule. Mornings can show breakfast times and the late check-out offer. Afternoons might be lunch and afternoon tea, and in the evening it's the restaurant and bar, plus whatever's on that night.
The Casty demo has an example of this for The Linden Hotel in Bath. There's an afternoon tea daypart from 14:00 to 17:00, with an exception that starts it an hour earlier on Sundays, and an afternoon tea promotion plays on the lobby screen in that slot every day. Nobody has to remember to put it up or take it down. The dayparts guide walks through that example.
Directions
Lobbies are where people get lost. A portrait screen by the lifts, or where a corridor splits, can point the way to the function rooms, the restaurant, the spa and the car park with a few big arrows and names. When an event's on, schedule a directional slide just for it ("Smith and Partners conference, first floor, turn left out of the lift") for the hours it runs.
Screens help people find their way, but keep all your fixed signs, including fire exit signs, exactly where they are. A screen can be switched off, lose power or be showing something else at the moment someone needs it.
The useful extras
Some small additions earn their place. A world clock helps guests who've flown in, or who are on calls with home. Check-out time, the taxi firm you recommend and the guest Wi-Fi network name all save trips to the desk (show the Wi-Fi password only if you're happy for anyone in the lobby to read it). Local weather is popular in a lobby too. The weather widget isn't in every toolbox, so email us if you'd like it added.
An overlay layout is handy for the bits that should stay visible whatever else is playing. It sits on top of the main content, so a thin strip along the bottom can carry tonight's dinner times while the rest of the screen rotates through events and welcomes.
Design for a lobby
A hotel lobby has a look someone thought hard about, and the screen should fit into it. Use your own colours and fonts (Casty layouts can use fonts you upload). Give each slide longer than you would in a shop, because guests waiting for a lift or a taxi have time, and use slow transitions over fast ones. Keep the sound off.
Think about the evening too. A bright white screen in a dimly lit lobby at 11pm glares. Darker slides for the evening daypart help, and on displays that support it, brightness can be controlled from the CMS (ask us to set that up). Designing content for screens covers text size and contrast in more detail.
Who looks after it
Reception usually owns the welcomes, and the events team owns the event list. Both can have their own Casty logins, set up by us, with access limited to the lobby screens or to scheduling only, so nobody can accidentally change the layouts. If the person updating a screen only needs to swap images in one playlist, they can have a simple one-playlist page instead of the full CMS.
Questions people ask
Can the lobby screen show different things in the morning and evening?
Yes. Set up dayparts for the parts of your day (breakfast, afternoon, evening, or whatever fits) and schedule different layouts into each. The screen changes over by itself every day.
Do we need permission to put a guest's name on the welcome screen?
Ask the organiser or the couple when they book. Many are happy to be welcomed by name, but some events are private, and anyone walking into the lobby can read it.
Can the lobby screen and the room signs show the same list of events?
Yes. Several layouts can read from one dataset or one calendar feed, so the events team updates it once and the lobby list and the door signs all change together.