Data from one of the world's largest hospitality shows have shown that even despite hard economic climates that the Internet usage from business and leisure guests at leading hotels has increased 50% since 2009. iBAHN, a leader in digital entertainment and solutions also found out that not only are the guests utilizing the internet services more, but they are also spending 60% more of their time on the internet as well. Ypartnership, an author of the closely watched National Traveler Monitor, found out two thirds of buisness travelers have downloaded music (67%) and another 60% has downloaded video, while one half has downloaded news (54%)or entertainment (52%). This information is relevant to hotel's because the model of "free internet to the guest" is becoming unreasonable and uneconomical do to the fact that some guests have different bandwidth needs. Bandwidth costs are starting to increase a lot and hotels will begin to see their bandwidth expenses rise without receiving any benefits to their daily rates or occupancy. However, an earlier study that was done found that if a guest was unhappy with their internet service that they would not return to the hotel.
Well this is quite the pickle! Offer internet or go broke paying for the bills? Sometimes its hard to choose your priorities. Internet is a huge commodity now and places that don't have internet just aren't doing as well as they places that have it. Lets face it, there are so many places that are willing to offer the free internet that if other places began to charge for it that there would begin to be a problem. However, if hotel's that were struggling needed to receive some sort of compensation for it, they could add it into the cost of the room. That was the guest wouldn't realize they are paying for the internet. Or the hotel could have a computer station set up, similar to the Courtyard Marriott at the University of Delaware, where they could monitor the amount of bandwidth used by the customer, so if they tried to download anything that would take up a lot of bandwidth they would be notified. It would do the establishment worse to rid the place of internet access to customers all together. I know personally that i expect to be able to use the internet when i am on vacation and i know others do to. Keep the internet, figure it out.
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Lauren-
ReplyDeleteI agree with your concept of hotels pretty much having to provide free internet at this point in time. They're not even just competing with other hotels in that regard. If a guest can't get free internet, many times they would rather just walk to the closest diner or Starbucks or McDonald's and work from there, as many of those businesses are even Wi-Fi spots nowadays. I also agree if your assessment that hotels should add it to the rate for the cost of rooms. I would imagine that most places that provide free internet access and free use of their business centers probably already do. Finally, in regards to bandwidth, you bring up a good idea where any single user sucking up all the bandwidth should be able to be identified somehow using some technological system in the property, as it's really unfair for the other guests of the hotel, especially if it's a larger property with hundreds of rooms.
Again I agree. Hotels really don't have an option anymore of whether or not they provide free wi-fi. Its a must. With the statistics mentioned earlier by Lauren it is clearly evident that business travelers are spending far more time on the internet for business but particularly for leisure/entertainment purposes. So although bandwidth price may be rising, hotels will have to find a way to soak up the costs. I liked Lauren's idea of rising room rates. This way the guests wouldn't even know they are paying more for internet. Too high though will make them unfit for the market so it would have to be done carefully with a lot of thought.
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