Contact:
Sarah Erdman, Marketing Director
515.965.3403
serdman (at) www.qagraphics.com
February 27, 2013
QA Graphics, Iowa-based interactive design company, has created a hospitality dashboard for Heart of America Group’s Hilton Garden Inn®/Johnny’s Italian Steakhouse® located at Olathe, Kansas. The hospitality dashboard is an interactive display used to educate guests on the new hotel’s sustainable features and serve as a central resource for information.
Heart of America Group is one of the Midwest’s premier design, construction, and management companies with a 33 year history of developing award-winning properties. Located in ten metropolitan areas across six Midwestern states, their portfolio consists of 32 owned and operated restaurants and hotels, 150,000 square feet of office space, and 1.4 million square feet of retail and hospitality. They constructed the new Hilton Garden Inn following the United States Green Building Council’s Leadership in Energy & Environmental Design (LEED) certification standards. The project is anticipating earning LEED silver, with the hospitality dashboard expected to help earn an Innovation in Design credit for educating visitors on the hotel’s sustainable building features.
“Not only do we receive LEED points in educating the customer, but we wanted to have something in our lobby that stands out and was interactive as a lot of the green elements do not visibly stand out to the customer,” said Damen Trebilcock, Senior Vice President of Heart of America Group. “Customers love it and appreciate the steps we took as owners in regards to the environment.”
This is the first Hilton Garden Inn to have this type of feature in its lobby. Guests can walk up to the solution displayed on a 42-inch touchscreen and learn what features make the hotel green, including the LED lighting, energy efficiency controls in the guestrooms, energy generating elevators, a solar thermal hot water system and more. The hospitality dashboard also serves as an overall building display, providing guests with access to live news, the current weather forecast, and the full menu for Johnny’s Italian Steakhouse, the hotel restaurant. Interactive maps also provide a floor plan identifying key areas throughout the hotel and suggest local restaurants, entertainment and shopping.
“The ROI is in educating the customer and differentiating your product! We believe this is one of the elements that accomplishes this. It is being used constantly,” said Trebilcock. “Our sales team uses it frequently to sell the restaurant, banquet menu and space with brides and corporate meeting planners. Our front desk staff is trained to walk someone through it if they have questions on the area, retail services, the property, weather and the restaurant menu.”
“It is also a great solution for people wanting to review the menu of the onsite restaurant before making a decision to stay and eat or find another place to dine,” said Trebilcock. “It creates a lot of buzz in the lobby!”
QA Graphics develops custom displays similar to this hospitality dashboard for organizations of all types. The applications can be deployed across touchscreens or kiosks, on the web, and on mobile devices. A variety of information is often included for education, sales and marketing purposes, ranging from educational demonstrations, area attraction information, wayfinding, advertisements, menus and nutritional information, calendar, and other display needs.
About QA Graphics
QA Graphics is an Iowa-based creative design company specializing in interactive applications, 3D design and animation, mobile app development and other multimedia. The company is also a leader in the building automation and green building industries, providing HVAC graphic development services and energy dashboards to help organizations educate occupants about building performance and sustainability.