For many hotel guests, a free, fast and easy-to-access Wi-Fi connection is now as essential as the bed. Rosalind Mullen takes a look at today’s Wi-Fi and in-room entertainment offer
4 | Technology Prospectus 2016
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or hospitality operators, the brutal truth is that without reliable and free Wi-Fi access your guests will simply desert you. Stephen Minall, director at product inno- vation company Moving Food, says: “Charg- ing for Wi-Fi or creating complicated sign-in procedures simply infuriates your guests. Get over it – find other revenue streams.” Hotel guests in particular expect to remain connected during the eight to 12 hours a day they spend under your roof. They see Wi-Fi as an amenity – just like they expect to find shower gel in the bathroom, says Carl Weldon, chief executive at Hospa. “We don’t ask guests on check-in how much water or electricity they will use, but we do ask about bandwidth and then try to charge for it. Hotels can cost-in rooms, food and as much drink as you can manage on some holidays, so why not Wi-Fi?”
More to the point, without decent Wi-Fi, you can’t embrace the increasingly crucial guest-facing technologies for mobile check- in, ordering room service and so on. “Poor Wi-Fi will affect your business,” warns
Weldon. “Nothing else is possible before that in this digital age – not the menus on tab- lets, door keys on smart watches, the clever interactive digital media and signage, guest service apps, room service apps, upselling apps, Google Glass, service robots. You have to start somewhere and that is good Wi-Fi.” There are significant costs associated with providing good Wi-Fi, but operators need to see these as simply the cost of doing business.
How Wi-Fi impacts guest services Wi-Fi is not just necessary for the guest’s per- sonal use. Restaurants and hotels increas-
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NO WI-FI?
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