A hotel technology integrator's scope breaks into three distinct space types — guest rooms, meeting/pre-function/ballroom space, and F&B venues — and each has a different mix of control, AV, and network work plus a different handoff point to the electrical contractor, millwork trade, or IT vendor. Guest rooms center on keypad-driven control integrated with the PMS; meeting space centers on flexible AV-over-IP and content sharing; F&B venues center on zoned, concealed audio and scene-based lighting. Writing an accurate RFP means scoping each separately rather than treating "hotel AV" as one line item.
This matters most at the budgeting stage, before a general contractor or ownership group sends an RFP out to bid. If the document does not separate these three space types and name where integrator scope ends, bids will not be comparable, and someone — usually the owner — absorbs the gap at commissioning.
What does guest-room scope actually include?
Guest-room technology is built around sensors, keypads, and a connection to the property management system rather than a single device. Crestron's own hospitality documentation describes the room sequence: presence sensors trigger scenes on entry (shades open, lights set, audio starts, TV shows a welcome screen), an in-room keypad lets guests toggle Do Not Disturb and Make-Up-Room (displayed outside the door), and occupancy sensors report status back to a Guest Room Management System that connects to the PMS and BMS (Hospitality Guest Rooms). On checkout, the same system triggers an energy-saving exit sequence — lights off, shades and drapes close, HVAC drops to eco mode — without staff intervention.
That scope is custom Crestron or packaged Lutron myRoom, lighting and shade control, the keypad or touchscreen hardware, and the PMS interface. It stops at the line-voltage wiring behind the keypad (electrical contractor), the keypad or sensor cutout in millwork and drywall (millwork/finish trades), and the network VLAN the guest-room controller rides on (IT/network vendor, often the same integrator wearing a different hat). An RFP should name which of those three a bidder is actually pricing. Cave Group designs guest-room automation on Crestron or packaged Lutron myRoom and integrates it with PMS platforms as part of its hospitality work.
How does meeting and ballroom scope differ from the guest room?
Meeting and pre-function space is a different design problem because the room has to reconfigure for different events on the same day. Crestron's hospitality team describes this as needing "light commercial" skills on top of residential-style guest-room control — AV, lighting, shading, and climate for common areas, restaurants, bars, and, in casinos or sportsbooks, near-zero-latency video feeds and massive video walls (Leveling Up Hotel Meeting Spaces). The same source lists the must-haves for a modern hotel meeting room: a simple touch-panel or keypad interface so an event coordinator (not hotel staff) can set up the room, wireless content sharing that does not require software installs, AV-over-IP for low-latency signal distribution and Multiview capability, and intelligent camera/microphone systems for remote attendees.
That scope covers the AV-over-IP backbone, DSP, wireless presentation receivers, lighting and shading scenes, and the control interface. It hands off to the electrical contractor for rack and projector/display power, to millwork for AV closet and speaker/keypad concealment, and to the IT vendor for the wired network the AV-over-IP traffic rides on — which, per AVIXA's conference-room guidance, should be isolated with its own VLANs and sufficient Wi-Fi bandwidth so AV traffic does not collide with guest or PMS traffic (Conference Room Design Guide for AV Professionals). Lighting presets tied to activity type ("Lecture" vs. "Media Presentation") are a design decision that should be locked with the operator before an RFP goes out, not left to field programming.
What belongs in F&B venue scope, and what stays separate?
Restaurant, bar, and lounge audio is largely an architectural-concealment problem rather than a control-system problem. Sonance's hospitality guidance describes matching speaker series to room type — small-aperture or invisible speakers for dining rooms where sound should not compete with conversation, professional-series speakers for bars and lounges, and outdoor-rated products for patios, rooftops, and pool decks (Audio for Hospitality). The restaurant-specific version of that guidance adds that outdoor-rated hardware needs to perform in the same conditions as the architecture around it, not just indoors (Audio for Restaurants & Bars).
For an RFP, F&B scope is the loudspeaker hardware, zone amplification, and the lighting scene control (often the same Lutron or Crestron platform as the rest of the property). It stops at ceiling or wall concealment (millwork/finish), and at the network segment if the zone controller is addressable (IT vendor). Ask your contractor and integrator to confirm in writing who owns in-ceiling speaker rough-in locations before the ceiling grid is ordered — this is routinely where F&B scope gets contested after the fact.
How should an RFP name the handoff points?
Write guest rooms, meeting/ballroom, and F&B as separate line items, each with three columns: what the integrator designs and installs, what the electrical contractor provides (power, conduit, line-voltage terminations), and what the IT/network vendor owns (PMS interface wiring, Wi-Fi backbone, VLAN segmentation, PCI isolation where POS systems are involved). Without that structure, two bidders can price wildly different scopes under the same "AV package" line and still look comparable on paper.
Frequently asked questions
What is the difference between guest-room and meeting-room AV scope?
Guest-room scope is keypad- and sensor-driven control tied to the PMS for occupancy, check-in, and checkout events; meeting-room scope is AV-over-IP video and audio distribution plus wireless content sharing for groups that change by the hour, closer to light-commercial AV than residential control.
Who installs the speakers in a hotel restaurant or bar?
The integrator typically supplies and commissions the loudspeakers and zone amplification, but ceiling or wall concealment is coordinated with the millwork and finish trades, and speaker series should be matched to the room — small-aperture or invisible models for dining areas, professional-series for bars, outdoor-rated for patios.
Does guest-room automation require a packaged system or a custom build?
Both are current options. A property can run custom guest-room automation on Crestron or a packaged platform like Lutron myRoom, and the choice depends on whether the property wants a fully custom system or a faster-to-deploy packaged one.
What network work is separate from the AV integrator's scope?
VLAN segmentation, PMS interface wiring, and Wi-Fi backbone capacity are typically the IT/network vendor's scope, though the same integrator often performs both roles; an RFP should state explicitly whether networking is included or carved out.
Where should lighting scene presets for meeting rooms be decided?
Scene presets such as "Lecture" or "Media Presentation" should be decided with the hotel operator before the RFP is issued, since they determine how many scenes the control programming needs to support and how flexible the room has to be for different event types.