If you blinked at FITUR this year, you might have missed it. Amid airline announcements, destination campaigns, and the usual hotel tech buzz, Orange Spain (MasOrange) quietly introduced something that could matter a lot to hoteliers who are tired of juggling vendors, contracts, and half-working systems. Hotel

telecom platform

The platform is called Hovo, short for Hospitality Telecoms Value Creation Operator. It is a subscription-based, “everything-as-a-service” digital platform designed specifically for hotels. The idea is simple and ambitious at the same time. Instead of managing Wi-Fi through one supplier, TV through another, telephony through a third, and cybersecurity as an afterthought, Hovo pulls all of it into a single, managed service.

Orange did not build it alone. The platform was developed together with NETHITS IT SOLUTIONS, a technology partner with deep experience in hospitality infrastructure. And the place of birth matters too. Hovo was officially presented at FITUR, which says a lot about who this product is for and how seriously Orange is taking the hotel vertical.

What hotels are really buying with Hovo

Strip away the marketing language and Hovo is not about flashy gadgets. It is about control and sanity.

Hotels that sign up are not buying routers, switches, or TV boxes. They are buying a managed digital backbone. Wi-Fi, television, fixed and mobile telephony, network security, and monitoring all come bundled into one platform, delivered as a service.

That matters because hotel tech rarely grows in a clean, logical way. Properties add systems over time. New Wi-Fi here, a TV upgrade there, a security patch when something breaks. Before long, the tech stack looks like a patchwork quilt stitched together by five different providers who barely talk to each other.

Hovo promises to replace that patchwork with a unified layer. One contract. One provider. One dashboard. From a hotel operator’s point of view, that alone is compelling.

Subscription over ownership, and why that is not just a buzzword

The “as a service” model is not new, but hospitality has been slow to fully embrace it. Hotels traditionally like to own hardware and depreciate it over time. The problem is that technology now evolves faster than hotel refurbishment cycles.

With Hovo, Orange is pushing a subscription-first model. Hotels pay a recurring fee aligned with operations, not a large upfront investment. Hardware refreshes, updates, and security upgrades become part of the service, not a new procurement headache every few years.

For multi-property groups, this is especially relevant. Standardising technology across locations becomes easier when everything sits under the same service umbrella. For independent hotels, the value is different but just as real. They get access to enterprise-grade infrastructure without having to build an internal IT team to run it.

Less tech chaos, more focus on guests

One of the most interesting things about Hovo is what it does not try to be. It is not a guest experience platform in the traditional sense. You will not see loyalty apps or digital check-in front and centre.

Instead, Hovo focuses on the invisible layer that guests only notice when it fails. Slow Wi-Fi. TVs that do not work. Phone systems that feel like they belong in another decade. Security breaches that turn into PR nightmares.

By centralising management and monitoring, Hovo aims to reduce those pain points. The pitch is that hotel staff should spend less time calling suppliers and more time focusing on service. Guests may never hear the name Hovo, but they will feel the difference when everything simply works.

Why Orange is a credible player here

Telecom operators have flirted with hospitality for years, usually offering connectivity and little more. What makes this move different is the level of integration and intent.

Orange already runs massive networks, manages critical infrastructure, and understands security at scale. Extending that expertise into hotels is a logical step, especially at a time when hotels are becoming more connected and more exposed.

MasOrange, the newly combined entity in Spain, also brings scale. This is not a startup experimenting with a pilot. It is a national operator building a vertical-specific platform with long-term ambitions.

The partnership with NETHITS IT SOLUTIONS also matters. Hospitality is full of edge cases. Room layouts, building materials, legacy cabling, and guest behaviour all affect network performance. Having a partner that understands those realities gives Hovo a better chance of working in the real world, not just on slides.

How Hovo fits into broader hotel tech trends

Zoom out and Hovo fits neatly into several trends shaping hotel technology right now.

First, consolidation. Hotels are actively trying to reduce the number of vendors they deal with. This is why integrated PMS and operations platforms like Mews or Cloudbeds have gained so much traction. Hovo applies the same logic, but at the infrastructure level.

Second, managed services over ownership. Similar shifts are happening in enterprise IT, where solutions like Cisco Meraki and Aruba Networks have proven that many businesses prefer predictable subscriptions over managing complex networks themselves.

Third, security becoming non-negotiable. Hotels are handling more data than ever, from guest identities to payment details. Regulators and guests alike expect serious cybersecurity. Bundling security into the core service rather than treating it as an add-on is no longer optional.

What this could mean for the hospitality telecom market

Hovo is unlikely to be the last move of its kind. If Orange finds traction, other operators will watch closely. Telecom groups across Europe have similar assets and face similar pressure to move beyond commoditised connectivity.

For hotels, this could be a net positive. More competition in managed hospitality infrastructure could lead to better pricing, clearer service levels, and faster innovation. The risk, as always, is over-dependence on a single provider. Hotels will need to scrutinise contracts, exit clauses, and data ownership carefully.

It is also worth noting that Hovo enters a market where specialist hospitality IT providers already exist. The difference is that Orange comes with network ownership, scale, and long-term investment capacity. That combination is hard to ignore.

Conclusion: not flashy, but potentially transformative

Hovo is not trying to reinvent hospitality. It is trying to clean it up.

By turning hotel telecoms and core digital infrastructure into a managed subscription, Orange is betting that simplicity will win over complexity. Compared to traditional hotel IT integrators or point solutions, Hovo feels closer to an enterprise-grade infrastructure play, adapted for hospitality realities.

If Orange executes well, Hovo could sit alongside platforms like Mews or Cloudbeds as part of a new, more modular hotel tech stack. One where hotels stop thinking about cables, routers, and systems, and start thinking about outcomes.

For now, Hovo looks less like a headline-grabbing launch and more like a strategic foundation. In hospitality technology, those are often the moves that matter most.