Interactive kiosks are quickly shifting from a one-off novelty into a staple asset for businesses. Following the massive success of Redbox – a self service kiosk system placed in shopping malls for DVD rentals – a range of large retail chains, city governments, and travel businesses are beginning to experiment with their own self service kiosks designed for payment, information and education, and automating simple tasks.

Of course, much like business staffing, kiosks are most cost-effective and valuable when optimized for use. For some businesses, this may mean a multi-purpose kiosk designed to minimize overall expenses and streamline in-store operation, while for others it could mean a very defined and single-purpose kiosk, installed with the goal of minimizing specific staffing requirements.

This flexibility is a key aspect of the ever-growing value of touch screen kiosks. From retail to travel, leisure to local government, kiosks can offer value in almost any industry. These three case studies illustrate how kiosks are changing strategy across three different industries: entertainment, retail, and travel.

How Kiosks are Boosting Cinema Profits:
The film industry has been thrown around over the last decade, but a number of recent technical advances are ensuring its profitability. The first is the installation of ticket kiosks in cinemas and theatre lobbies. With the addition of self service ticket points and payment kiosks, cinemas are lowering operating costs and rapidly increasing their profit margins, allowing moviegoers to enjoy relatively lower ticket prices and decreased wait times at cinemas.

Cineworld, one of the UK’s largest cinema chains, have experienced this boost in moviegoer spending first hand. Since installing automated ticket booths, their per-customer spend has greatly increased, alongside higher levels of customer satisfaction and a much more streamlined movie experience. Since installing touch screen kiosks, staff have been able to focus on major customer concerns more immediately, and overall operating costs have been lowered significantly.

The Effects of Self Service Kiosks in Retail:
Self service kiosks are quickly becoming a common sight in retail settings. UK childcare and baby products giant Kiddicare have implemented retail kiosks into their outlets, with some very positive results. Installed with the purpose of freeing staff to focus on customers, the kiosks have achieved their goals effectively, increasing per-customer spend and maximizing Kiddicare’s ability to focus on customer assistance directly.

A range of factors influence the value of these kiosks installations. On-screen software allows merchants to streamline their sales and information process. Similar to the direct sales process, kiosk software is designed to guide customers through a clear on-screen journey. Multi-purpose kiosks, one of the most effective tools for increasing ROI, benefit most from relatively minimal on-screen information and grounded navigational buttons.

We’ve all heard about the success of movie rental kiosks, such as Redbox, but the 2010 Consumer Electronics Show has thrown up an intriguing industry incumbent.

DVDs you rent can often end up damaged or unplayable and returning them is as much of a hassle as sending an old fashioned rental back to the shop.

So, Symwave and Xona Media have invented a better way.

They’ve created the MK3 DVD+Digital kiosk, and they’ll be showing it off next year at CES 2010. This kiosk uses USB 3.0 technology to deliver full movie downloads to customers in less than 10 seconds, and will carry an almost unlimited selection of films.

If you don’t have a USB 3.0 capable drive, your old 2.0 stuff will still work with the MK3. Using it is still going to be faster and more convenient than any other movie renting experience. Plus, when you’re done with the film, it just gets deleted from your hard drive. You never have to worry about returns.

Global Axcess Corp, an independent ATM provider with more than 4,500 machines, are branching out into the self-service market with a line of DVD-rental kiosks in 2010.

CEO George McQuain, who has largely been responsible for bringing the once-struggling Global Axcess back to profitability, says they have a unique opportunity to compete against the major DVD-rental brands.

“We believe there is a largely unmet addressable market for DVD kiosks that will not only allow us to penetrate the market but also allow us to displace incumbents,” McQuain said in December. “Our goal is to leverage our ability to deploy, manage, maintain and process transactions from a wider range of self-service kiosks beyond the traditional ATM. We believe our aggressive move into the DVD kiosk market has significant upside revenue growth opportunities for us.”

During 2009, kiosk revenue grew 94%, with the Redbox-dominated channel approaching $1 billion in revenue. Kiosk rentals were more than enough to offset a 3.2% decline in rentals from brick-and-mortar outlets such as Blockbuster and online sectors.

With stiff competition from 2009 sensation Redbox, Blockbuster CEO Jim Keyes said yesterday that the future of the Dallas-based DVD rental company hinges on its ability to position the brand across multiple distribution platforms – or it might not be a happy ending for Blockbuster.

“The next 12 to 18 months are going to be very challenging,” Keyes said. “We are building a multichannel platform approach and at the same time we have brand new competitors (namely Redbox and Netflix) certainly taking some of the demand out of the market.”

“The great opportunity for Blockbuster is to adapt to the different use occasions, because that’s what these kiosks represent,” he said.

The CEO said Blockbuster has the option to close additional stores, a strategy he said the media blew out of perspective last year when it focused on the closure of 1,000 stores through this year while failing to mention the addition of 10,000 Blockbuster kiosks.

“The net increase for Blockbuster’s presence in 2010 was actually 9,000 additional points of presence, via kiosks,” Keyes said.