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The 'Wireless Butler' At Bryant Park Hotel Enabled by Symbol Technologies Mobile Computing Solutions
URL(s): www.symbol.com/hospitality
HOLTSVILLE, N.Y., Aug. 15, 2001--
New Heights In Customer Service: Twenty-Five Floors Of Spectrum24(R) Wireless LANs with Symbol SPT 1740s To Service Patrons
in Real Time
Step out of a taxi cab in front of the Bryant Park Hotel, New York City's latest in luxury designer accommodations, and you'll have a
room key in your hands before entering the lobby.
Decide to dine in en-route to your suite? A butler will forward your food request before you reach your door. Expecting faxes or
packages sent to you at the hotel? Your butler will check immediately with the front desk without ever leaving your sight or making a
phone call. It's the latest in wireless local area network (LAN) technology and handheld computing from Symbol Technologies, Inc.
(NYSE: SBL) - and the front end of an emerging trend - and all part of the new level of customer service at Bryant Park Hotel.
"In a recent survey, some 81% of business travelers cited that the check-in process is where they would like to see marked
improvement," says Elon Kenchington, Managing Director, at Bryant Park Hotel. "Using the latest in mobile computing and wireless LAN
technology from Symbol, we took efficiency in customer service to the next level. In fact, because it links into the same wireless
infrastructure, we took it to all twenty-five floors. Now our 'wireless butlers' have full visibility to guest history information, room
descriptions and hotel services, from anywhere in the hotel at anytime, enabling them to service guests to new levels."
Upon the guest's arrival, a Bryant Park Hotel employee will input the visitor's information into a Symbol SPT 1740 handheld computer
and verify their room information. The guest simply swipes their credit card through a magnetic stripe reader to automate check-in. The
SPT 1740 communicates with a portable key encoder that creates and outputs the guest's room key and a portable printer that produces
a customer receipt containing the room number and rate information.
Each floor of the Bryant Park Hotel currently has a private butler, who caters to all of the floor's respective suites, creating a greater
accommodation experience for guests. Equipped with a SPT 1740, each butler gains instant visibility and access to the myriad of hotel
services without leaving the floor. From here, the butler has the technology to perform a number of enhanced customer service tasks, such
as ordering food, requesting amenities, checking on packages, verifying charges and expediting check out.
"The Bryant Park Hotel is at the front end of the curve in the trend of addressing customer service with the latest information
technology," says Doug Lloyd, Director, Worldwide Hospitality Markets at Symbol. "We see demand for this particular application of
mobile and wireless technology rapidly growing worldwide in the hospitality industry because of the improved customer satisfaction and
subsequent brand loyalty it delivers. That puts Symbol and our business partners in the best place to accommodate and support them."
The technology solution is based on a wireless infrastructure, providing access to all 25 floors of the Bryant Park Hotel, using Symbol's
high performance Spectrum24(R) 11 Mbps wireless local area network. Staff are armed with ruggedized Symbol SPT 1740 handheld
computers integrated with wireless LAN capabilities to interface with the hotel's host system. The Bryant Park Hotel uses the OPERA
Enterprise Solution, an integrated application suite that enables access to hotel services and customer information over the wireless SPT
1740s, developed and installed by MICROS-Fidelio, a prominent integrator of information technology for the hospitality market. Visit
www.symbol.com/hospitality for more information on Hospitality solutions from Symbol.
Symbol Technologies, Inc., winner of the National Medal of Technology, is a global leader in mobile data transaction systems,
providing innovative customer solutions based on wireless local area networking for data and voice, application-specific mobile computing
and bar code data capture. Symbol's wireless information appliances connect the physical world of people on the move, packages, paper
and shipping pallets, to information systems and the Internet. Today, some 10 million Symbol bar code scanners, mobile computers and
wireless LANs are utilized worldwide in markets ranging from retailing to transportation and distribution logistics, manufacturing, parcel
and postal delivery, government, healthcare and education. Symbol's systems and products are used to increase productivity from the
factory floor to the retail store, to the enterprise and out to the home. Information about Symbol is available at and 1-800-722-6234.
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