Extreme Connect 2025
May 19-22
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The hospitality industry and the networking business have more in common than you might think. The best characteristic of both worlds is often the willingness to go the extra mile and create an emotional connection that makes your guest (or customer) feel seen, heard, and valued. Read on to learn how this shared philosophy led Hyatt Hotels & Resorts to choose Extreme Networks as a networking partner for operations in the Asia Pacific region.
Hyatt Hotels Corporation is a U.S.-based hospitality firm which oversees and franchises luxury and business hotels and resorts around the world. The company’s global portfolio includes over 1,400 all-inclusive properties across 79 countries, with a substantial presence in Asia and Pacific. Jonathan Reinfelds, Field Services Technology Director Asia-Pacific, Hyatt Hotels Corporation, explains the significance of reliable connectivity in Hyatt’s both day-to-day operations and business strategy.
“At Hyatt, we say we care for others so that they can be their best, and that applies to both our guests and employees,” said Reinfelds. “A solid networking technology is the key enabler for that, helping our colleagues feel empowered to give their best while delivering excellent, seamless digital services to our guests.”
In the world of hotels and hospitality, one can’t overstate the importance of creating a welcoming, transformative experience in a transient world. It’s an art form that starts with giving guests the comforts they often have set up for themselves at home — but in an automatic, generous way. This requires investment in the right technology and working to build genuine connections. As guests’ expectations and needs have evolved or expanded from the old days of single cellphones to multiple devices and streaming, Hyatt wanted to be positioned to exceed those customer expectations.
“In the past, guests may have only come with one device, while today it’s a multitude of end-clients such as smartphones, mobile gaming devices, or laptops. What we're also seeing a lot today is the use of streaming services like Netflix or Hulu, which again requires very strong networking on things like multicast,” said Reinfelds. Together, he and his team resolved to make changes that positioned them ahead of these evolutions.
This resolve pointed to a few additional questions. How would the technology Hyatt chose support its specific needs? Which functions would be key for ensuring both quality guest experiences and greater operational efficiencies? Would there be a way for Hyatt to ensure the solution was secure against threats and attackers, capable of protecting both the customer and the business itself? And like many other companies during the pandemic, Hyatt struggled with supply chain issues. So, would they be able to find a partner capable of keeping up with the company’s network modernization plans?
Investing in the right technology and building a networking foundation that generates value, rather than costs, is key to remaining competitive and increasing RevPAR (revenue per available room) for any hotel business. Choosing the best-in-class yet scalable and cost-effective solution is even more difficult if you consider the fact that essentially every hotel requires an individual approach.
The first joint project by Extreme and Hyatt began during the Covid-19 pandemic, and already challenging time for global travel and the hospitality industry. This initial project involved deploying a wired network infrastructure for a newly developed Hyatt hotel in Malaysia. Extreme’s ability to provide advanced switching equipment on short notice allowed the construction project to proceed on schedule. What followed was a consistent replacement of entire Wi-Fi systems at a number of locations throughout the Asia Pacific region.
Extreme was also able to create a consistent experience across vastly different hotel settings. Even details like construction materials (stone or metal versus wood or glass) were taken into account to help Hyatt provide a completely consistent experience across different properties. From newly built hotels to renovations of existing buildings, Hyatt was able to harness truly adaptable and scalable technology to meet the needs of each specific hotel environment. And coupled with cloud-based, centralized management, these elements made an enormous difference for Reinfelds and his team.
“Just a few years ago, back when we used on-premise network controllers, it was very difficult for us to manage everything from a central point,” said Reinfelds. “But now that we have them in the cloud, it's allowed us to do a lot more with them and give us a lot more visibility into what's happening on our networks.”
“Our guests began to express great satisfaction with the signals received throughout the hotel and the surrounding premises, and ever since that we have been receiving similar, positive feedback from all the other properties where we implemented solutions from Extreme Networks,” said Reinfelds of this new approach. “What’s really helpful is that we can mount the equipment in a number of different locations, using many different methods, and still provide that consistently high level of experience.”
In the case of the Hyatt Regency Guam, a 450-room deluxe resort hotel located on a prime beachfront site in the heart of Tumon Bay, Extreme solutions helped Hyatt provide exceptional guest experience while also integrating perfectly with existing technologies and systems, e.g. Hotspot 2.0 (also known as Wi-Fi Certified Passpoint), a standard for public-access Wi-Fi that enables seamless roaming among Wi-Fi networks and between Wi-Fi and cellular networks.
“With Extreme Networks, we find that our onsite IT managers are able to sleep a little bit easier, making sure that the network is up and running,” Reinfelds said of the results. “This is the comment we get from our properties where the Extreme Networks equipment is operating at maximum efficiency, and reliability has been absolutely amazing.”
When it comes to managing hotel networks, there is a lot that needs to be looked after in terms of service availability and cybersecurity. Network performance aside, another critical aspect of modernizing the infrastructure was to ensure that the management of the system was as easy as possible for Hyatt’s teams while at the same time keeping everything as secure as possible. By leveraging the ExtremeCloud IQ solution, Reinfelds and his team have significantly improved their security posture.
“Our primary objective is to give the best possible experience to our guest which means we do not want to interfere with their stay in any way. Luckily, migrating to Extreme has been very easy for our properties to do. Using ExtremeCloud IQ, we are able to remotely manage all the access points and get them into the rooms without a hiccup,” said Reinfelds.
What’s equally important in this case is that Extreme’s cloud-powered solutions allow Hyatt Hotels & Resorts to dynamically upgrade their properties, without impacting the guest experience during the process.
Security, availability, and cooperation are as crucial to hospitality as they are to networking. These shared values have become the foundational underpinning of a successful partnership between Extreme and Hyatt, built on delivering the benefits Hyatt needed and supporting Hyatt’s commitment to caring for guests. Partnerships like the one it has with Hyatt demonstrate the value of two unique industries, two unique companies, holding a shared commitment to customer experience.
“Extreme Networks demonstrated an astounding level of commitment to bring our properties online, on time, and also to the security level that we needed. The company has been incredibly willing to work with us to make sure that the proposed solution was the right fit for each hotel, engaging us in discussions with not just their sales but also technical and corporate teams,” said Reinfelds of working with Extreme. “In a way, it very much mirrors our own philosophy about how we care for others so that they can be their best.
