I frequently see the LCD/Plasma TV's in full service, CY, and FI properties.

I rarely see any HD programming, which makes the TV's kind of a waste of money (unless the flat panel is saving a significant amount of space over a tube set).

And if they are using old style armoirs, flat screens don't really save space, so it may only be worth updating them when you replace the furniture.

Which is why i idly speculated on reasons why. Gave you a great excuse to slap me down. :D :D :D

They may be saving energy over a tube set.

Possible. I have no idea how much electricity they save over a regular TV. I would suspect that it's not enough to pay for the TV over any reasonable length of time, but I could certainly be wrong.

And if they were interested in saving electricity, the AC wouldn't be cranked down to 58 in the room every time I check in. I'm exaggerating, of course, but almost every room is pretty cold when I get there. I actually enjoy this, but energy efficient, it's not.

I have seen a couple of places where they're mounted on the walls, which is a nice space/counter saver, and I'm all for any space they can save in the rooms.

I wouldn't try to discourage Marriott from putting the flat panel TV's in every room, but I just don't see the benefit if you're going to cram it into the same armoir as the tube TV and not have HD programming. I'd just as soon not see the cost of that passed on through room rates.

Or maybe not. LCD's use less energy than do CRT's of comparable size. But properties are replacing much smaller CRT's (20-27 inch) with larger LCD's (32-37 inch). The size increase serves to negate any savings of energy and, indeed, the larger-sized LCD's may use more energy than the smaller CRT's. http://www.sierraclub.org/howgreen/screen/answer.asp
(Disclaimer: Not meant as a "slap" to Brian.) ;)

I know in the past socrates or someone else on FT mentioned that there was a delay in getting the TVs changed to accept HD programming. I think it has to be done by property, and there was a waiting period to do that.

If the reason they have the flat panel TV's sitting there displaying only non-HD programming is that they're in a queue to get the signal upgraded and that process is slower than we would like, then that seems reasonable enough.

Must be some line they're in, though. They've had the flat panels w/o HD programming for quite some time.

Whatever happned with the trumpeted system wide tech upgrade
 

This was suppose to have been completed three years ago.
And that was during an upswing in Marriotts fortunes.

Lied to once again-oh Marriott how could you :rolleyes:

Only 269 full service left to install
 

Marriott's press release of 26 Feb 2007 stated they planned to have HD TV with the connectivity panel in all US and Canadian JW, full service Marriott and Ren. by the end of 2009. www.plugintomarriott.com shows the US has 163 of these 432 hotels already completed leaving just 269 properties left to do in the next 3 months.:D

Of course not all of the completed ones have HD programing on the HD screens.:td:

Spot on. A GM I was talking to last year was saying how he was building up the fund to refurbish the rooms including flat screen TVs. The reason for doing it all in one was because with flat screens you don't need a huge piece of furniture so you can take that out and make the room look larger overall. So it is part of larger process involving designers etc.

Unfortunately I haven't stayed there in a while so don't know if he managed to get the accountants sign off or not!