The Brand

Belonging to Marriott's luxury tier of brands, W Hotels was "born from the mix of eclectic cultures and vibrant energy of New York City."

One of the first lifestyle brands in the hospitality industry,  W takes that 24/7 vigour worldwide, bringing the best of music, fashion, design and fuel to stunning destinations around the globe.

The Hotel

Featuring 244 stylish guestrooms and suites, W Edinburgh occupies three buildings, the stunning new 12-storey copper ribbon building,  Georgian Townhouse James Craig Walk, and the Quarter House. Dominating the Edinburgh skyline, the hotel offers a contemporary twist in one of Europe's most beautiful cityscapes.

Arresting to look at, both inside and out, W Edinburgh provides a decadent, sophisticated space for its guests.

The hotel's rooftop spaces offer not just a 360 degree panoramic view of Edinburgh, but a buzzing destination bar, chef's table, outdoor terrace, and Scotland's first SUSHISAMBA restaurant.

Other facilities include wellness experiences at the AWAY® Spa, FIT Gym and five meeting and event studios.

The Technology

The guestroom

In order to satisfy the thirsty tech consumption of its Gen Z guest demographic, W Edinburgh required cutting-edge guestroom entertainment technology. Essentially, this required a platform to support a BYOD driven system, allowing guests to cast content from a smart device, onto the in-room TV.

This technology was provided via commercially certified Google Chromecast, embedded on an Otrum Mirage guestroom entertainment system (GRE).

Chromecast allows guests to cast content from streaming APPS - such as Netflix, Amazon Prime, BBC iPlayer, YouTube etc - to the hotel TV, providing a watch what you want, when you want viewing experience.

 

 Other features provided by Otrum's SaaS TV platform include:

- Fully customisable information pages, including local weather forecasts and amenity booking functionaliuty via on-screen QR codes

- TV channel line-up management - including access to a selection of international and foreign language channels.

- Web radio services (complementing the channel-line up's collection of radio channels).

- Access to hospitality exclusive streaming APP, Airtime, providing free-to-guest access to premium, early-release blockbuster movie (and programming) content.

- a PMS link, offering extra features (and operational efficiencies on the display's interface - on this occasion, the provision of viewbill and express checkout).

W Edinburgh opted for LG commercial displays, with the 55-inch UR767H Series hospitality series TV, providing the perfect balance between a premium aesthetic, and functionality. Most of the 286 TVS were were flat-to-wall mounted - providing a low footprint aesthetic in the hotel's design-led rooms. 

A JBL sound bar was connected to each display, providing hi-fi sound quality, in keeping with the UR767's UHD display. 

Adding an element of luxury to a selection of W Edinburgh's suites, Airwave installed Aquavision silhouette bathroom TVs in the bathroom areas of three of the W Edinburgh's most exclusive suites, these were wall-mounted and connected with Otrum Mirage via LG STB-6500 set-top boxes. 

Public areas

In line with the W Edinburgh's drive to create a modern tech experience, Airwave also designed a digital signage ecosystem.

Otrum's API centric digital signage platform was implemented to distribute content across the hotel's many public areas. Numerous signage displays were wall-mounted in high-footfall areas, including:

- a stunning 10 by 5 panel UHD LED wall, measuring just short of 6 by 2 metres.

- 20 x 55-inch LGUH5F-H signage displays, wall-mounted across the hotel's various public areas

- 5 x 32-inch LG signage displays, mounted in the hotel's lifts. 

It was such a pleasure to work with the W Edinburgh on this project, a fabulous hotel in a fabulous city!

Charlotte Walkes, Project Manager, Airwave 

We're proud to have provided LG hospitality series TVs to a five star hotel that takes technology so seriously, it's a real vindication of the quality of our product.

Kieron Taylor, National Sales & Strategic Accounts Manager , LG Electronics UK