The phone in a hotel room is the one piece of technology every guest touches and the one the hotel most wants to forget about. It must look like it belongs in the room, work every time, connect the guest to reception and services with one button, and integrate with the hotel’s systems so that check-in, wake-up calls and billing happen without staff intervention. Snom’s hospitality range is designed for exactly this, and this article explains what a hotel should look for and how Snom delivers it.
What a hotel phone needs
- Design – a clean, modern handset that suits the room, in finishes that match the interior, with the hotel’s logo and service labels on the faceplate.
- Service keys – one-touch keys for reception, housekeeping, room service, concierge and emergency, labelled in the hotel’s languages.
- Durability – a handset that survives being dropped, spilled on and cleaned daily for years.
- Bathroom and cordless models – a matching bathroom phone and a cordless handset for suites and villas.
- PMS integration – check-in and check-out, guest name on the display, wake-up calls, do-not-disturb, voicemail, and call billing to the folio, driven by the property management system.
- Manageability – hundreds of phones provisioned and updated centrally, not room by room.
Snom’s hospitality range
Snom’s hotel phones are SIP desk phones with a hospitality design: a compact footprint, programmable service keys with printed or display labels, a speakerphone for hands-free use, a USB charging port on some models, and matching bathroom and cordless handsets. They are provisioned and managed with the same tools as Snom’s office phones, and they interoperate with hospitality PBX platforms and PMS middleware from the major vendors.
Integration with hotel systems
The PBX sits between the phones and the PMS. On check-in, the PMS tells the PBX to enable the room’s phone, set the guest’s name and language, and clear voicemail; on check-out it disables outbound calls and posts the call charges to the folio. Wake-up calls, do-not-disturb and minibar or housekeeping status codes dialled from the phone flow the same way. Snom phones support the SIP features these workflows rely on, and the hotel’s PBX vendor provides the PMS link. For new builds, 3CX with a hospitality module is a common combination that Zen supplies alongside the phones.
Migrating an existing hotel
Most hotels in the region have analogue phones on a legacy PBX. Two paths exist. Replace the PBX with an IP platform and the phones with Snom SIP phones, using Dinstar FXS gateways to keep any analogue devices (lift phones, pool phones) in service. Or keep the analogue phones for now on the new IP PBX via high-density FXS gateways, and replace them with Snom phones during the next room refurbishment. Zen supplies both the gateways and the phones, so either path is a single project.
Practical considerations
Order faceplates with the hotel’s branding and languages in advance. Standardise on one desk and one bathroom model across room types. Agree the service key layout with operations before printing. Plan PoE switch capacity per floor. Test the PMS workflows in a model room before rollout. Keep spares on site.
Snom hospitality through Zen
Zen Interactive Technologies distributes Snom in the UAE and GCC, with hospitality models available from Dubai and the PBX and gateway components to complete a hotel project. We have supplied hotel telephony across the region and can advise on the PMS integration path. See the Snom page.