Innovation Summit: Movitas - I get the problem but not sure they solve it

At the PhoCusWright Innovation Summit Chuck Sacco VP Client Strategy of Movitas very cleanly and clearly described the problem his company was trying to solve - how to move the conversation and interaction between hotel and customer from the room to the whole property. Customers are constantly on the move on property with connected devices yet the main interaction between the property and the customer continues to be phone calls from the room or visits to the front desk.

While the problem was easy to describe, from the twelve minute presentation it was challenging to see how Movitas solved it. As a Bootsnall tweet said " kinda struggling to put what they do into one sentence.."

Sacco described the system as "developing for hotels a guest operating system"– a means for on property communications that connects a hotel and guest when the customer is outside of their room. For example a consumer can check in virtually using the tool and then go on to search local information, on property information, book tours, make reservations and pay their bill.

From the 12 minute presentation at the Summit it was hard to see how good a job Movitas is doing at meeting challenge as the presentation was delivered very quickly - too quickly. Lots of screen shots streamed a lightening speed. I would have preferred to have seen one or two examples of the product displayed slowly rather than the half a dozen or more screen shots and moving images flashing left, right, up and down. I am also not convinced that a hotel can persuade busy mobile road warrior customers to come to the hotel's own mobile platform when apps from Google, TripAdvisor, Orbitz, Kayak and more provide the vast majority of the functionality that Movitas was describing without the need for a new download or functionality learning curve.

The hotel guest is on the move and is connected - no doubt about it. They are hungry for information and content - absolutely. But they already have lots of apps and tools downloaded. I am not convinced that Movitas will be able to persuade hoteliers to persuade customers to add one more.

Update - here is what Bootsnall had to say about Movitas