Free Wi-Fi becoming standard at hotels
For Yael Smadja and business travelers like her, a Wi-Fi connection in a hotel is nonnegotiable.
"Reliable Wi-Fi service is absolutely critical for me. I have come to expect it as naturally as a telephone in the room," said Smadja, the president of Smadja & Associates USA, part of a Geneva-based family firm that manages worldwide economic seminars.
The demand for Wi-Fi was never more insistent than last month, when volcanic ash caused a six-day shutdown of air service in Europe and affected millions of business travelers around the world.
Many of them, like Smadja, who was in Asia trying to get to Switzerland, used their hotel rooms as a base while they scrambled online to make alternate travel arrangements.
The days when business travelers routinely fretted about the availability of Internet connections in hotels are gone, or rapidly fading.
Even business travelers who are bereft of Internet access know that Wi-Fi hot spots can be easily found on sites like the WiFi Alliance's hot spot finder ( wi-fi .jiwire.com ), which lists tens of thousands of free and pay access locations around the world.
If a hotel connection is unsatisfactory or unavailable, and finding a nearby hot spot isn't feasible, there are other options. Business travelers going by car - as many do on shorter trips - can usually find high-speed connections for around $10 at Interstate truck stops, which often provide desktop work spaces as well.
Also, growing numbers of travelers carry smartphones that can use either Wi-Fi or cellular connections to reach the Internet.
Others carry an AirCard, a small modem that can link laptops to the Internet using cellular networks and fills in when standard Wi-Fi isn't available. (Many wireless providers charge $40 to $60 for AirCard service plans.)
Still, in recent years, most hotels have heeded the message that business travelers require Wi-Fi access - no excuses accepted. While many convention and luxury hotels still impose a daily charge for access, most midlevel hotels and even many budget-price hotels now provide it free.
And corporate travel managers are pushing hard for all hotels to provide free access, pointing out that customers, especially younger ones, live in a world where free Wi-Fi is expected.
Moreover, despite the mild travel recovery under way, hotels no longer have the degree of pricing power that they had in years immediately preceding the recession. Corporate travel managers are in a strong bargaining position, even with big four-star-level convention hotels that have always charged for Wi-Fi access.
In an online survey in late April by the Association of Corporate Travel Executives, 80 percent of travel managers said that Wi-Fi availability was a "deal-maker/breaker" in deciding which hotels to select.
Long gone are the days when a business hotel could shrug off a shaky, or even nonexistent, connection.
"Providing Wi-Fi isn't an option, it's a requirement," said Richard Crum, the president of the Association of Corporate Travel Executives.
Crum predicted that as the current travel recovery gained traction, convention and luxury hotels would bow to pressure and start dropping the fees.
It isn't just the extra $10 or $12 a day, he said. It's also a cultural shift in expectations.
"I mean, you can walk into a McDonald's and get it free," he said. "It's also the hassle factor associated with paying per day, with having to get on your mobile device and put in your room number and code. You just want Wi-Fi that works and is ready to go."
Marriott International, whose 3,400 worldwide properties include the midlevel Courtyard and the luxury Ritz-Carlton brands, has a major corporate initiative under way to re-evaluate Wi-Fi supply and demand, by way of anticipating future requirements from an ever-expanding array of devices, whether laptops, Wi-Fi smartphones, Kindles or big Wi-Fi video systems for meetings.
Though expectations are that the leasing agent would engage prospective renters about voice, video, and data services, that's seemingly not the case. The good news is that most residents do not find this to be a problem. Most are satisfied with the experience; 58 percent said it was either “satisfactory” or “very satisfactory.” Renters may also want to shop around for the best price and service options or prefer to work directly with the service provider for their phone, Internet, or cable service.
Neither are renters willing to accept a bundled tech package from telecommunications companies, despite the capital and effort these firms have invested in providing such services (i.e., cable providers offering phone and Internet access). While 80 percent of residents were aware that they could receive more than one service from a single service provider, only 15 percent said they were “likely” or “very likely” to do so.
When it comes to the importance of having a choice of providers, renters were of two minds. Although 70 percent of residents did not have a choice, 41 percent said that having a choice in providers would have a “high” or “very high” impact on their renewal decision; 34 percent said it would not.
