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Hotels: the lobby needs times, routes and prices, not ads

Breakfast, check-out, events, Wi-Fi: what guests look for on the screen. Plus the price lists that accommodation businesses must display.

By , , 3 min read

Kapaso solution: AIO Hub is made by the publisher of this magazine.

Reception desk with a bell beside a portrait screen with an empty archway, four table rows and a brass circle
Grafik: Kapaso GmbH

A guest arriving at a hotel usually has four questions: where do I check in? When is breakfast? How do I get on the Wi-Fi? And when do I have to leave tomorrow? A lobby screen can answer all four without anyone at reception having to look up. The condition is that it does not compete with advertising for attention.

What belongs there

  • Times. Breakfast, check-in, check-out, sauna, bar. As a calm table, not running text.
  • Wayfinding. Lift, restaurant, meeting rooms, gym.
  • Wi-Fi with the network name and a QR code.
  • The house today. A wedding in the ballroom, a conference in room two: guests want to know where something is going on.
  • Weather and departures. Weather for the place, departure times of nearby buses and trains. Both are things guests would otherwise ask at reception.
  • Notes on the house. Fire safety, emergency number, reception opening hours.

What does not belong there

Advertising for third parties that the guest hardly notices and that has nothing to do with the house. Equally, videos with sound in the lobby, even "quiet" ones. And no room rates as a promotion with an unverifiable "instead of" price.

Two duties on prices

Section 13 of the German Price Indication Ordinance applies to accommodation businesses. It requires a list to be displayed or laid out at the entrance or at the check-in point in a clearly visible place, showing the prices of the main rooms on offer. The same applies to the breakfast price if breakfast is offered. The prices must include the service charge and all other surcharges. If a telecommunications system can be used in the rooms, the price charged for it must also be stated.

Whether a changing screen meets this duty is not expressly stated in the ordinance. The cautious course is to keep the price list available as a fixed notice as well. This article is not legal advice.

What this looks like with AIO Hub

AIO Hub from Kapaso has shipped 20 standard templates since version 6.1.0, in operation at the manufacturer since 3 October 2026. One is called "Good morning at the hotel": times from breakfast to check-out, a photo in an arch, the times as a table without grid lines. It comes in landscape, in portrait and as an e-paper version for 13.3 inches. The hotel adds the photo itself.

The Hub shows weather, departure times and appointments from a calendar as data on the screen. Besides the Android app and the Windows application, any screen with a browser can serve as a player; the screen fetches content from the Hub via a protected link.

The limits: the Hub does not know who is currently in the house. A connection to hotel software is not the subject of this article and is not documented. Anyone who wants to greet guests by name needs their own interface for that. The Hub shows what someone enters or what a source delivers.

Several languages

Guests come from several countries. Two languages side by side read better than a switch because everyone finds their line at once. It makes sense to translate only what is necessary: times, routes, Wi-Fi, emergency number.

A test

Read the lobby screen once as a guest would at 11 p.m. after a long journey: do I know when breakfast is tomorrow?

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