Imagine the anxiety felt when the light bulb was invented. Gas lights and candles were replaced with delicate glass bulbs with a carbon filament that resembled a fishing fly. The bulbs needed fixtures, and the fixtures needed electricity, and the electricity needed receptacles inside the house that connected to wire outside the house through which electricity traveled. Don’t even ask how that was done. Connect them all together and you had light. Mind boggling for folks back in 1879.
So simple, so complex.
Fast forward to 2011. Can you imagine being charged to use electricity in a guest room? Of course not. It, along with the sink, the toilet, and the bed, are obvious standards included in the cost. Yet, despite the Internet’s ubiquity, there are places (surprising places) where hotels continue to charge for this basic standard of everyday modern living.
Mind boggling.
Travelers have long lamented hotel connection fees. Their frustration fuels social media travel channels. So much so that every year for the past seven years, HotelChatter.com publishes the annual Hotel WiFi Report.
While some hotels have relinquished this nugget of “revpar” in return for happy customers, others hold on, devising ways to finagle the $9, $15, $20 or more per day charge to connect. Become a loyalty club member, stay 50 nights, book this or that and you may be rewarded with free WiFi. It is dangled out there as if it is the hotel’s to give.
For today’s market, it is as ludicrous as “Want air conditioning? Become a loyalty club member!”
Then there is the comical yet sad “free lobby access.” There is nothing more pathetic than watching guests in an upscale hotel schlep their equipment to the exquisitely appointed hotel lobby, then scamper around to find a place they can get comfortable and login.
In speaking with some hotel chums about the charge, it is apparent Internet fees are a no no subject. Kind of like asking what color underwear you have on. Makes you uncomfortable.
Obviously no hotelier still charging wants to give a straight answer because there is only one answer. Revenue.
So Hotels Want To Make Money? So What?
There is nothing wrong in making profit. Without it, what’s the point? Aside from Gordon Gecko’s “Greed is good,” how that profit is made is what the dance is all about.
Remember hotel telephone charges? With improved cellular service, landlines are dinosaurs hotel guests no longer need. No one is going to pay to dial 9.
Contemporary circumstances have the travel industry on its knees as it struggles to make money and offer value. Customers have increasingly tight budgets and demand better bang for the buck. Put the two together and it’s more than a dance, it’s a bullfight.
Nickel and diming is salt on the wound.
Take the airline industry. It is a now a Chinese menu, charging for everything from checking in curbside to legroom to pillows and blankets. We even pay to bring luggage on a trip.
Mind boggling.
Why frustrate customers? You wouldn’t give guests the option of paying $10 to use their guest room toilet or use the one in the lobby for free, right? Right.
Charging for Internet service in 2011 reminds me of the movie “Baby Boom” with Diane Keaton. After being charged up the wazoo caring for her 200 year old Vermont farm house, she loses it when the plumber tells her the well is dried up and it will cost another $9,000 to bring water to the house. “I don’t want to know where the water comes from, I just want to turn on the faucet and have it come out!!!!” Right after this, she passes out.
Remind you of anyone?
Hotel A Charges, Hotel B Does Not
So why do some hotels, many inexpensive brands, offer free WiFi and others, many expensive brands, charge?
One industry exec who asked to be anonymous explained it this way: “It’s like at XYZ cheap hotel when you don’t pay for Internet, but at XYZ luxury hotel you do. The luxury hotel charges because the expectation level of the type of Internet access you get in a cheap hotel is very low, where as when you go to a luxury hotel, expectation is higher, so costs to deploy that are higher to ensure you have a good quality solution.”
Huh?
During a recent business trip to New York my brother stayed at a luxury hotel with a Central Park South address. He needed to check in for his flight and was sent to the business center where he had to swipe a credit card to get Internet access. Five minutes and $11 dollars later his connection timed out while he tried to locate an account number. It gets better. When he inquired about the charge the desk agent said, “Oh, you get free access if you go to an airline site.” Smile. Head tilt.
Oh, okay. It’s free to check airlines, but the exact same service access is charged if you went online for any other need.
I read another explanation by a UK hotel GM. He explained that if they didn’t charge for Internet access “Every snot nosed kid staying here would be online playing games and perverts would be on porn sites.”
Mind boggling.
Yet there are many hotels, even “nice” hotels that don’t charge. For instance, the Kiawah Island Resort. “We don’t charge for any Internet service,” said Mike Vegis, Public Relations Director. “We have free WiFi throughout the hotel which we just upgraded in all hotel rooms and meeting rooms. Any number of users can be online without a degradation of service.” Mike continued by adding “We don’t have any plans to ever charge for Internet service. I know how frustrating it is. I was recently in Atlanta for the PGA Championship and stayed at a upscale hotel that charged $10/night for Internet access (to plug in, not even WiFi). I wasn’t happy. I went across the street to a restaurant and used there. It really put a bad taste in my mouth for that hotel.”
Three-quarters of luxury and “upper upscale” hotel chains — segments that include brands such as Four Seasons, Hilton and Marriott — charge for in-room Internet access, according to the American Hotel & Lodging Association 2010 Lodging Survey conducted by STR Global.
In comparison, just 2% of full-service midrange hotel chains — a segment that includes brands such as Holiday Inn — ask you to pay a fee for surfing the Web in your room, the survey found.
As for the security issue. Charge or no charge, public access is still an open line.
Hotels charging for Internet service is a touchy subject. Today, customers are more than likely to travel with smartphone, tablet and laptop. It is a way of life, not an upscale convenience. Hotel companies should make it priority one to find a way to stop pinching their guests. I assure you, the ones that do will stand out from the crowd. Give customers a reason to be loyal time and again. Think value. Sell features and benefits of a well-priced room. Traveling is stressful enough, don’t add fuel to that fire. Be user friendly.
So simple, so complex.
A future post focuses on convention hotels and Internet access charges for meeting groups. Hold onto your ear buds.
Mind boggling.
Additional links on subject:
WorldHum.com (Photo Free WiFi zone courtesy of site)
The Price of Staying Connected – New York Times
The Increasingly Ridiculous Cost of Hotel Internet Access - Huffington Post
Ridiculous or Not, Wireless Hotel Charges That Make You Want to Stay Home – ElliottTweet
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