I consider myself an experienced traveler and the nature of my job requires me to remain connected wherever I go. As a road warrior, I not only rely on my mobile devices to keep me connected with my team, but to get valuable information and services. These services include real-time travel updates, navigation, translation, dining recommendations, and streaming entertainment. As a hotel guest, the same relevant information and services can also be delivered directly to my mobile device. In fact, according to Forrester Research 90% of hotel guests say Wi-Fi is among their top sought hotel amenities. To support this growing demand, many hotels have cobbled together disparate systems. However, delivering a truly engaging experience requires a new approach and more innovative hotels are thinking beyond basic connectivity to engaging with their guests through a personalized mobile experience.

For hotel operators, providing a Wi-Fi connection no longer has to be a one-way ticket for guests to leave the hotel's Wi-Fi login page to get to other mobile apps and services; it can be a conduit to engage guests and deliver personalized, seamless experiences. However, delivering this experience has not historically been easy for the IT architects and developers charged with this task. It requires the integration of highly distributed data, applications and infrastructure across all devices globally. Within these hyper-distributed environments, organizations often struggle to access and make best use of data trapped at the edge of the network and deliver personalized experiences. Enabling the near real-time use of this data is key delivering an engaging guest or workforce experience.

Cisco has begun working with a number of different industries to leverage the Enterprise Cisco Mobility Services Platform (EMSP) to elevate the guest experiences, differentiate their businesses, and create new sources of revenue. EMSP helps these organizations create, deploy, and manage pervasive mobile experiences, using context-aware data like presence, location, and user profile information to effectively engage people on their mobile devices.

For example, a global hotel chain has recently been considering how to enhance brand equity and drive a superior yet consistent guest experience. Understandably, it has accumulated a diverse set of incompatible wired and wireless networking solutions. This makes network deployment and management cumbersome and expensive. With EMSP, they can unify their guest Wi-Fi access authentication and deliver context-aware experiences by integrating loyalty programs, property management systems and any other personal information available and provided by the guest. As a result, the company is expecting to achieve faster service, far greater customer satisfaction, brand loyalty and reduced network operating. By delivering via the cloud, the central organization has much greater brand control, flexibility and speed when delivering new services.

Hospitality is just one industry example of how Cisco's customers are changing the mobile experiences via contextual awareness that can result in big wins for your organization. Are you currently connecting with your customers over your wireless network? How are you differentiating your business through personalized mobile experiences? Please comment below to share your experiences and ideas.

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