This article will explore the trend of renting audio and video equipment for hotel convention halls and hiring specialized event staff for the hospitality industry. Proyecto Rental de Chile was the guest.By: Héctor Gómez Pérez
On many occasions, the importance of audio and video systems in the hotel sector has been emphasized in these pages. Among the many functions performed by these teams are those of informing, entertaining and, in the case of meeting and convention rooms, being the main allies for the success of an event held within the facilities of our hotel. In this sense, large meeting rooms and a dedicated staff service are useless, if the video projector does not work properly or the voice of the exhibitor is heard with a terrible quality due to inconveniences with the audio equipment.
A good way to avoid these setbacks is by outsourcing a specialized team of people, with the highest audiovisual technology, to meet the requirements of the hotelier in terms of events and meetings; this is precisely the service offered by the Chilean company Proyecto Rental. We invite Cristian Andrade Martínez, executive director of this company, to tell us the details of this way of doing business between the hospitality and audiovisual industry.
The audiovisual theme in the hotel
Undoubtedly, the fact of having high-level audiovisual facilities in the hotel means that the guest does not see the need to hire these technological aids for their events and conventions on the outside. Likewise, the hotel has the possibility of generating new business opportunities by incorporating computer services, networks, Internet, accreditation and registration services, simultaneous interpretation, room buildings and audiovisual equipment.
"Our commercial proposal is aimed at three areas: on the one hand the installation of technical equipment, on the other the offer of in-house personnel, with certifications and specialized in customer service with hotel protocols. Finally we are a strategic partner for the hotel because we bring new business and focus on the commercial part," explained Andrade.
Basically this company after having the plans, either in the new hotels or in the old ones, proceeds to the installation of electric curtains, aerial projection systems, audio and video wiring, audio systems, matrix systems, intelligent audio systems and mobile equipment. The hotel rents this equipment and pays Proyecto Renta every time it uses it.
In the Chilean case, specifically in its capital Santiago, there are 15 facilities of this type implemented between hotels and convention centers; of the hospitality companies, the hotels The Ritz Carlton, Crowne Plaza, Atton (El Bosque and Las Condes), Blue Tree, among others, stand out.
The market
According to Andrade, the audiovisual and computer needs are given more by the market of conventions and corporate or government congresses, than by the hotel industry itself. Currently this Chilean company has been in the market of its country for 10 years.
Among the manufacturers that are part of the stock that Proyecto Renta offers to the hotelier are Draper, in electric projection screens in 16:9 format; Mitsubishi projection systems; cables, peripherals and matrix interconnections with Extron; audio systems with Electro Voice; microphone with Sennheiser; Analog Way for edge blender; Bosch for simultaneous translation, and Multi-Caisses interpretation booths.
In approximate figures we would be talking about a stock of equipment represented by 2,000 translation receivers, 15 certified interpretation booths, 150 projectors, 200 screens and 70 computers, mentioning only large equipment.
"The hardware or equipment can be bought by any company or hotel, but what you can not buy quickly because it requires many years of work is the commitment to service, the immediate response and the exceeding of user expectations," said the guest.
As Andrade commented, before the hotels mentioned above started working with Proyecto Renta, they had their own equipment: a tripod curtain, one or two projectors and the same number of audio systems. "The problem was that they were operated by the maitre, the waiter or the man who opened the door. There was no audiovisual department, but we have created it," explained the guest and was emphatic in pointing out that this has helped hotels to attend in a timely manner the damage of a microphone or any other equipment that presents an anomaly, for example.
The contracts made by the hotel that wants to acquire the services of this Chilean company are made for a period of at least two to three years, because "we make a large investment in fixed and mobile equipment. In addition, we help the commercial strategy and pricing policy for the banquet area," Andrade said.
The impact on the industry
According to Andrade, the reception in the hotel world of this type of business has been very positive, so much so that the employees of Proyecto Renta are considered part of the places where they carry out their work. "In some hotels members of our staff have been chosen as the best employees of the month, although they are not part of the legal staff of the place."
He even shared a couple of anecdotes in which in a hotel there was a fire and the staff of Proyecto Renta was the first to come to help, or on another occasion in which the employees of a hotel went on strike and the people of the company in question helped in tasks that did not correspond to them, such as serving coffee or transporting chairs. "All this because we believe that this is how the relationship between the audiovisual company and the hotel company should be," Andrade said.
About the main inconveniences or complications that have been found in hotels to make the facilities, the guest said that in new establishments it is not always easy to work with architecture companies because the audiovisual theme in many cases is not part of the architectural project. In hotels already built, the problems are with air conditioners or fire lines, "simply because many hotels were not designed to integrate audiovisual and computer technology," Andrade said.
The previous year this company carried out a total of 6,000 events and the failure rate in the equipment did not reach 0.2%, something that in the consideration of the guest is due to the fact that the process of staging or revision of cables is extremely exhaustive, the equipment is subjected to extreme test situations and there is a large backup stock .
Although Proyecto Renta has a large market in Chile, it is currently looking to establish new alliances in countries such as Brazil, Colombia, Argentina and Peru to open this business model throughout Latin America.
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