Feature: Wi-Fi - to charge or not to charge?
09 August 2010
When it comes to the typical complaints guests make about hotels, being charged for internet access is high up on the list.
Guests grumble about having to pay extra to surf the web and check their emails, while hotels – or at least those that charge for in-room internet access – say that internet is an add-on service which it costs the service provider to offer, and that that cost should be covered by the guest in the same way as other optional extras, such as the use of a mini-bar or, in some properties, room service, which aren’t included in the room price.
The debate over charging for Wi-Fi isn’t new, but over the past year or so it has picked up pace with guests, particularly business travelers, getting increasingly irate. In Asia, where the cost of using internet in a hotel room in a high-end hotel can be as much as US$20 per day, it’s a particularly sensitive issue.
“People’s expectation is free wireless exposure. Hotel operators today and most of the big chains have got to get their act together on this. It’s got to be wireless and it’s got to be free and most of the hotel companies are still holding out on this,” said Bernadette Dennis, managing director of the Asia Pacific branch of Hospitality Sales and Marketing Association International (HSMAI), in an interview earlier this year with Hotel Management Asia.
“To most people it is abhorrent when you know you have access at home for a certain amount of money and when you go to a hotel, you pay your monthly internet access bill for one night,” she adds.
“It is a deterrent for people and not only in a corporate environment. It is even in our leisure environment because people now are travelling with devices that can give them everything but they want to be able to upload and download and they don’t want to pay telco costs.”
One staunch supporter of free internet provision is the Shangri-La Hotels and Resorts which in January 2009 announced it was offering free Wi-Fi and wired internet at all of its hotels and resorts.
“Getting connected while on the road is the number one priority of our business travelers and many of our valued customers view internet access as absolutely crucial. No longer considered a luxury, guests are demanding high-speed Internet access as an essential room requirement and as something that should be included as a standard service by an international hotel group,” commented Shangri-La Hotels and Resorts president and CEO Greg Dogan in a statement released at the time.
I am against a fee for using the wifi you are the customer of that hotel. Internet is so cheap today and some hotels are asking for a lot of money so you can use their wifi.