Badrutt’s Palace Hotel and the Badrutt Family had long been recognized as innovators in the hotel industry. It was Johannes Badrutt who implemented in 1879 an electricity plant in St. Moritz and the first electric light in Switzerland illuminated the restaurant of his hotel. Pursuing this pioneer spirit, Badrutt’s Palace partnered with Swisscom to install 5G mobile technology on property, offering a faster and more reliable and powerful network to its guests than ever before – a premiere in the hospitality industry in Europe.
In response to evolution and the growing demand for a faster network, Badrutt’s Palace Hotel becomes the first luxury hotel in Europe to install 5G. By increasing surfing speed, diminishing response time and elevating the capacity of transferring data, the hotel improves connectivity and services for its guests.
“We have to plan now for a future defined by ubiquitous access to high-speed data anywhere,” says Richard Leuenberger, Managing Director of Badrutt’s Palace. “It will still take some time until most devices are able to support 5G but we wanted to be ready and use this service as another differentiator before the 5G technology becomes a standard.”
At Badrutt’s Palace, the digital experience is part of a highly valued guest experience. Nowadays, guests travel with multiple devices, watch and stream video content and new apps are using more data. Today, people send and receive as much data in half a day as they used to consume in a week, five years ago. 5G technology enables guests to be connected in the fastest and most reliable way, providing virtually delay-free communication in real-time.
“The 5G installation at Badrutt’s Palace Hotel is the first one inside a luxury hotel in Europe and it is just the beginning to digitally expand the incomparable service of the hotel,” says Friederike Hoffmann, Head of Mobile Solutions at Swisscom. “We are looking forward to develop further services together.”
It’s not only about today, it is also to prepare for the future. The increased capacity of the 5G network will eventually also allow hotels to enhance their services. Many technologies that could further enhance service digitally already exist but a network and devices with the ability of transferring more data at a higher speed are required to introduce these services in a hotel environment.
In addition to installing 5G and taking into account that not all guests have 5G enabled devices yet, Badrutt’s Palace also partnered with Huber+Suhner, a leading global company in the electrical and optical product space to enhance the fibre optic network throughout the hotel building. This includes advances such as fibre connectivity to the rooms and suites and enhanced performance of WiFi connectivity.
Badrutt’s Palace Hotel guests and visitors enjoyed the improved connectivity from the last Festive Season.
