Whether you will be staying in discount hotel rooms or upscale chains or purchasing discount travel packages, the odds are that your hotel will offer Internet service. The strange thing is that the less expensive hotel chains are the ones who tend to offer free Internet service.
Hotel guests in 2009 were on the Internet 60% more often than the prior year and downloaded 50% more data according to iBAHN, which provides Internet service to more than 2,200 hotels across the world.
This is all the more impressive when you consider that the revenue per available hotel room in the U.S. was down 17% last year. The average daily rate for U.S. hotels fell 9 percent in 2009. Hotel rates are expected to drop another 3 percent in 2010.
Even though a common complaint among hotel guests is that higher end hotels charge for Internet use, iBahn believes that these hotels have no choice when it comes to charging a fee given guests increasing Internet usage and the growing trend to download big files.
iBAHN contends that because the cost for bandwidth continues to increase exponentially, hoteliers will continue to experience greater expenses related to their broadband offering, without any offsetting income in terms of being able to increase occupancy or charge a higher rate.