Case Study: InterContinental Chongqing Raffles City achieves smart-hotel transformation and enhanced guest experience with HPE Aruba Networking

IHG transform towards smart hotel by deploying digital technology

IHG sought to modernize its hotel operations and guest experience by upgrading legacy network infrastructure to handle heavy guest data traffic and enable end-to-end digital services—from booking through check‑in and in‑room experiences. The challenge was to deliver consistent, high‑speed guest Wi‑Fi and unified authentication across properties while making deployment and management simple, fast and cost‑efficient for hoteliers.

IHG partnered with Aruba to build IHG Connect on Aruba Central’s cloud‑native platform, deploying cloud‑managed APs, switches and IoT integrations for zero‑touch provisioning, AI fault analysis and centralized analytics. The subscription model reduced upfront capex, accelerated rollouts (now in 30% of Greater China hotels with full rollout planned), and enabled personalized guest features (TV integration, multi‑method login, in‑room services), stronger security and streamlined operations for faster, data‑driven hotel management.