Wireless Internet access is no longer a rarefied luxury. It’s free in cafes, parks, fast-food chains, campgrounds and gas stations — yes, gas stations.
Yet in some places travelers still must pay for Wi-Fi access, and perhaps nowhere is that more disturbing than in an upscale hotel room.
While many budget and midscale hotel chains have largely given up on charging guests for Wi-Fi, fees persist at more luxurious sister hotels — typically about US$9.95 to US$19.95 a day.
Wi-Fi is free, for example, for travelers staying at Starwood’s Aloft. At Starwood’s W Hotels, the service costs roughly US$12.95 to US$16.95 for 24 hours. This disparity has long perplexed travelers. But in this economy, with expense accounts drying up and vacationers increasingly looking for deals, having to pay to use the Internet at your hotel seems increasingly absurd.
“As far as I am concerned, it is one of the most annoying of hotel charges,” said Randall Stempler, a lawyer in New York who travels often on business. The fee is “exorbitant,” he added, considering the time he usually spends logged in to check e-mail or go online. “It should just be built into the rate, like electricity.”
Many guests agree. Free in-room Internet access ranked as the most desired guest-room amenity in a national survey of 800 affluent travelers conducted in August by Ypartnership, a travel-marketing firm in Orlando, Florida. That was above premium bedding and flat-screen TVs. A January survey of 6,300 people across 10 countries by the research firm Synovate found that 47 percent of respondents said a hotel must cater to their technology needs before they book it, with wireless access a top priority.
“We are finding that it is now no longer an added feature to have wireless Internet in hotels, but rather it is expected,” Sheri Lambert, a Synovate senior vice president for travel and leisure research, said in a statement. “Travelers, whether for business or leisure, need to be connected.”
Budget hotels, which have been offering free Wi-Fi for some time, are increasingly calling attention to the service as a way to stand out from more expensive hotels as travelers look for bargains in the recession.
Starwood’s new extended-stay brand, Element, has been highlighting its free Wi-Fi in local advertising campaigns for recently opened hotels in Las Vegas and Lexington, Massachusetts. Homewood Suites by Hilton is running an advertisement that lists “all the little extras that would otherwise eat into your expenses,” starting with high-speed Internet access.
Recognizing the resentment, a few upscale hotels have begun to drop Internet charges — at least for some of their guests.
Hyatt announced last month that it would waive the charge for
in-room Internet access for members of its loyalty program at platinum and diamond levels. In March, the luxury Liberty Hotel in Boston did away with the US$10.99 fee it had been charging for Internet access and began offering free Wi-Fi throughout the hotel.
Some hotels, however, have taken the opposite direction. Thompson Hotels, a small group of boutique hotels that used to boast about free Wi-Fi, started charging US$10 per 24-hour period earlier this year. “As rates of all of the hotels have decreased,” said Jennifer Walters, a publicist for the hotel group, “certain services that don’t affect all guests had to be altered — one such item being Wi-Fi. Not all guests use it, so to include it complimentary in the rate no longer makes sense with the consumer wanting the most attractive rates.”
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