Netflix Killed the Video Star

In the old days, when business travelers got bored of being shacked up in yet another hotel room, they used to rely on their hotel’s video-on-demand assortment to offer a welcome distraction. In addition to being a valuable service for hotel guests, in-room entertainment was also a welcome source of revenue for hotels, which were able to charge lofty prices and earn healthy margins.

Those days are over however, as today’s travelers usually carry all the entertainment they need right in their pocket. According to CBRE Hotels, U.S. hotels have seen a precipitous fall of in-room video rentals over the past 15 years, with revenues per available room dropping 75 percent between 2000 and 2015.