OREANDA-NEWS. The North East's 2015 Small Hotel of the Year has added a hi-tech new feature to its award-winning guest rooms - custom tablets allowing instant access to up-to-the-minute hotel information and on-the-spot room service ordering.

Seaham Hall is one of the most prestigious hotels in County Durham, set in a historic coastal property that was the venue for the 1815 wedding of the poet Lord Byron. After recognition for its five-star facilities from the judges in the most recent North East Tourism Awards, the management has placed the hotel at the forefront of digital guest-facing technology. It is the first hotel in the North East to feature the state-of-the-art in-room tablets, the current must-have in high-end hospitality tech.

Ross Grieve, Managing Director at Seaham Hall, said that the hotel had been keen to embrace new technology as part of the guest experience.

"A sense of history is a very important part of what we offer at Seaham, but at the same time we don't ever stand still when it comes to adopting the latest developments in hotel technology. It's obvious that it's now time to be moving away from old-fashioned printed room service menus and guest directories," he said.

The in-room tablets are provided by Crave Interactive, the UK's market leader in supplying guest-facing digital solutions to the high-end hotel trade. The custom-made Crave T2 tablet and docking system is installed in every guest room, allowing instant room service ordering, spa and restaurant booking and communication with staff. The Seaham Hall installation also features a new County Durham edition of the acclaimed Crave Guide, exclusive to the hotel and covering the attractions of this beautiful region. The tablets use Crave OS, a unique proprietary operating system designed to allow instant remote updates and revisions of content at any time without interrupting guest use.

Tim Butterworth, Crave's Commercial Director, said that the company had a track record of working successfully with properties like Seaham Hall.

"We now have Crave tablets installed everywhere from huge Las Vegas hotels to all-inclusive Caribbean resorts, but we first honed our service, finessed our operating system, and gained the deep knowledge of guest and management needs that went into designing our T2 tablets while working with country house hotels here in the UK," he said, adding that the commercial benefits of the tablets worked particularly well in properties like Seaham Hall.

"The tablets allow for very effective upselling through tailored push-messaging, and we've found over the years that this has particularly excellent results in heritage properties with their own high-quality restaurants and spas," he said.

Wendy Benson, Director of Sales and Marketing at Seaham, said that hotel management and staff were looking forward to exploring the potential of the in-room tablets. "Paper menus and directories in rooms already seem like something from another century," she said; "guests will soon come to expect this sort of technology as standard in five-star hotels like Seaham Hall."

About Crave Interactive

Formed in 2009, UK-based Crave Interactive Ltd is a leading developer of guest-facing hotel tablets and app solutions, helping hotels provide great service via in-room tablets and guest-owned devices. Crave is the European market leader, and its products and services are available worldwide.

Crave's services are powered by Crave Cloud, a sophisticated proprietary software platform that delivers excellent guest services via any device. To date over 1,000,000 items have been ordered via Crave Cloud.

Crave in-room tablets and apps provide a full range of guest services in a sleek and stylish manner. Crave solutions can replace paper directories, and increase revenues of in-house services, such as spa treatments, restaurant bookings and merchandise sales. Nearly all guests engage with Crave in-room tablets, viewing an average of approximately 50 pages per guest night.