People who value cheap travel options, such as discount hotel rooms, cheap vacation packages and discount travel packages, and want to be able to access the Internet while away from home, need to be very careful in selecting which hotel to choose.
In what appears counter intuitive to many, more expensive hotels tend to charge for Wi-Fi access in guest rooms, whereas cheaper hotels tend to offer such service for free.
U.S. hotels earned $269 in telecommunications revenue per available room in 2011, an increase of 51 percent over two years earlier. Given that guestroom phone usage continues to drop, this increase was driven by rising demand for Internet access.
Hotels are faced with guests who want to use multiple, bandwidth hogging devices as well as an old Wi-Fi infrastructure that usually requires expensive retrofitting to accommodate expanding Internet demand.
Most hotels have no problem providing free Wi-Fi for guests to send and receive email. However, as guests increasingly want to Skype and stream movies hotels bandwidth needs to increase significantly.
The problem is acute in older hotels that were built before the Internet. Hotels such as the Palmer House in Chicago were built with expanded steel lath that sucks up Wi-Fi like a sponge. Hotels are left with the decision to either make large investments with no obvious financial return to upgrade their Internet service (retrofits are costing as much as $1.5 million for a large hotel) or charge customers for Wi-Fi access.
Some hotels are opting for a third approach, implementing a tier Internet service plan, whereby guests can access basic service, slower but sufficient for surfing the web and sending email, for free while those who want to use multiple devices or want to stream movies are charged a fee.
Surveyed guests are not happy about paying for Internet service. Hotel guests who were charged for Internet access reported an average score of 688 (on a 1,000 point scale rating satisfaction with overall hotel costs and fees), 76 index points lower than those who did not have to pay a fee.
The trend of charging for Internet access remains limited today to high end hotels, with most mid scale and budget hotels offering free Internet access because of the competitive demands of such price sensitive markets.
www.cheapfares.com