The Brands
Founded in 1994 by Frasers Hospitality, Malmaison and Hotel du Vin are sister brands with shared heritage and distinct identities.
Both are housed within characterful buildings, offering great food and drink and a design-fulled guest experience.
Malmaison leans urban and contemporary: eclectic hotels, unconventional buildings, big city centres. Its guests are drawn to atmosphere — business travellers and city-breakers who enjoy an energetic vibe.
Hotel du Vin strikes a quieter note. Townhouses and historic buildings in cathedral and university towns, each hotel shaped by the character of the building it occupies, with a French bistro and a sommelier-chosen wine list at its heart. Its guests tend towards the unhurried: couples, food-and-wine enthusiasts, those who appreciate understated comfort.
Yet whichever door a guest walks through, the expectation is the same: modern, intuitive technology that matches the calibre of everything around it.
The Brief
airwave connect was asked to support a phased refresh of guest-room entertainment and audio visual technology across the Malmaison and Hotel du Vin estate (18 Malmaison, 19 Hotel du Vin properties). The programme covered the installation of 2,500+ guest room entertainment systems, and audio visual technology across hotels of different shapes, sizes and layouts.
The remit was straightforward: in the guestroom, give guests a modern, familiar television experience, make personal streaming easy and provide hotel teams with a platform that could be managed quickly and easily. In public spaces and business facilities, provide modern, intuitive, and discreet audio visual technology.
As is the case with all busy hotel environments, installation needed to be completed with minimal disruption to guests, room occupancy, and day-to-day hotel operations.
Guest Room Entertainment across the Estate
43-inch and 55-inch LG televisions fronted the rollout, offering ultra high definition performance on hospitality certified displays – installed on both stands or wall mounts depending on the room’s size, footprint, and aesthetic. Every display was set up and configured according to the brand’s requirements, while existing equipment was removed and sustainably recycled as part of the installation programme.
Uniguest Hub provided the guest-facing interface. A branded home screen and a series of information pages gave each hotel a clear way to present useful content through the television, while central configuration helped maintain a consistent experience across the wider estate.
Guest casting was delivered through Google Chromecast technology, giving guests a simple way to stream their own content on the in-room television.
Behind the screens, airwave connect refreshed RF headends where required and installed the network, control and video-distribution equipment needed to support the service. Project management, testing and training were included, giving hotel teams a clear route from installation through to day-to-day use.
Each hotel's system called from the same technology pool, but was designed around the property, the space, and the guests most likely to use it.
A Tailored Audio Visual Deployment
The AV programme followed the same principle as the wider technology rollout: flexible consistency.
Each hotel’s system called from the same technology pool, but was designed around the property, the space, and the guests most likely to use it.
Selected flagship Malmaison hotels received the most comprehensive installations. With the brand attracting a greater proportion of business travellers and placing more emphasis on meetings and events, these properties required flexible spaces that could move easily between presentations, workshops and hybrid meetings.
In smaller meeting rooms, 65-inch MAXHUB XBoard V7 displays bring video conferencing, wireless presentation, touch control, annotation and digital whiteboarding together on one screen. Their 4K, non-glare displays keep content clear in bright rooms, while integrated Windows computing supports familiar platforms including Microsoft Teams, Zoom, Webex and Google Meet. Larger meeting spaces use 98-inch MAXHUB displays, giving presentations and shared content the scale they need. Bring-your-own-meeting capability allows guests to connect their own devices rather than learn an unfamiliar system.
Behind the screens, a WyreStorm IP video matrix routes content between displays and allows adjoining rooms to operate independently or as one larger space. Yamaha amplification and Blaze audio processing manage sound across the different rooms and speaker zones, with Sonance 8-inch in-ceiling speakers providing clear, evenly distributed audio without intruding on the interior.
Sennheiser wireless microphones give presenters freedom to move around the room, while Yamaha ceiling microphones capture discussion without adding equipment to the table. For hybrid meetings, Huddly Crew cameras use intelligent framing to keep participants visible and help remote attendees follow the conversation more naturally.
Hotel du Vin called for a quieter approach. Its hotels are more leisure-led and often occupy historic or highly individual buildings, where prominent technology could work against the character of the room. Here, equipment was specified more selectively and integrated with greater discretion. Mirror TV displays, for example, conceal the screen within a reflective surface when it is not in use, allowing presentation facilities to remain available without dominating the space.
The result is not a single AV template repeated across the estate, but a series of carefully judged variations. Malmaison’s flagship meeting spaces provide the depth of technology expected by business travellers and event organisers; Hotel du Vin offers the capability its guests need in a form that sits more quietly within its surroundings. In each case, the technology serves the hotel rather than asking the hotel to accommodate it.
Flexible consistency. Not every technology requirement - even within the same brand - is identical, and the technology should reflect that. We kept the essentials consistent, then adapted the screens, sound and controls to the building and the way guests would typically use the space.
Richard Reid, Business Development Director, airwave connect
The Outcome
Across both brands, the programme created a more consistent guest entertainment experience while respecting the individual character of each hotel. Guests can move easily between live television, hotel information and their own streamed content. Hotel teams have a centrally configured platform, supported by a planned approach to installation, training and ongoing operation.
At Malmaison Manchester, the same practical approach has been carried into the meeting spaces. The Work + Play rooms now support everything from an informal team session to a larger hybrid presentation, with technology that is easy to use and does not distract from the experience.
Get in touch
airwave connect designs, installs and supports integrated audio-visual, automation and connectivity systems for residential and commercial developments. To discuss a forthcoming project, contact the team::
connect@airwaveconnect.co.uk or +44 (0)1403 783 483