Free Hotel Wi-Fi is increasingly on Travelers' Must-Have Lists [telecom]

Good. It always pissed me off that when I travel for personal reasons, and stay at budget hotels, I get "free" network included with the $90 room rate, whereas when I travel for business and stay at a Marriott or a Sheraton, they ding me for $15 a day on top of the already outrageous room rates.

At least USENIX is now including wireless in their hotel contracts for conferences. So long as I stay at the overpriced conference hotel, anyway....

-GAWollman

***** Moderator's Note *****

Well, it does cost *something* to provide the service, and whatever a hotel charges for it, the cost pales in comparison to the value of

*your* *time*. Maybe we all need to ask how we got the idea that only those whom are glued to a computer are productive?

Bill Horne Moderator

In article , Bill Horne appended:

It's my JOB, Bill, and yet it's still rather insulting to suggest that I'm "glued to a computer" when attending a conference.

-GAWollman

Good for them!

It costs something for hot water and towels too, but they throw it in with the room. WiFi is pretty cheap in the scheme of things (at most locations); the for-pay systems probably spend more on billing than on the service.

While one might suggest that leisure travelers should not spend their time on the computer (although it comes in darn handy for things like finding nearby restaurants, getting tickets, etc.), a business traveler needs to be in touch with the outside. It is not a luxury; it is a work tool.

Oops, sorry, my apologies. I didn't write that clearly.

Here's the issue as I see it: road warriors need Wi-Fi, /some/ of the time. We all agree on that: it's the most effective way to distribute copies of slides, presentations, handouts, etc. for those whom are attending conferences, and it's convenient for attendees to be able to check their inbox or read the c.v. of presenters during breaks. No hotel manager would leave it out of a "meeting" package.

However, the hotel operators are charging high rates for providing it

*in* *the* *rooms*, apparently because they can. To them, as the author of that original piece pointed out, "it's found money".

But ...

I'm uncomfortable with the notion that we must all accept that we need it all the time, and I wonder if we'd do better to question why WiFi in hotel rooms is so important in most businessmens' minds. I'm /not/ talking about watching NetFlix or updating FacePage: those are personal matters, not germane to the question of why - and this is the reason I am personnally skeptical about the benefits of "smart" phones and other always-on Internet tools - we accept the idea that we must spend all the time we used to have to ourselves, peering at a computer screen for business reasons.

The best and most widely welcomed ideas I had while *I* was a road warrior were those that came to me while I was sitting quietly, letting my mind wander over possibilities which were *not* available on any website, handout, slide show, or presentation. The computer that my employer provided to me was as much a hindrance as a help: although it made a lot of information available to me, my assumption that it should be on and in use whenever I was awakw also deprived me of the time I needed to use my head, and I am convinced that we all lost something when we came to a hivemind decision that we have to be connected during every waking moment. What used to be quiet hours spent in hotel rooms, away from the distractions of children, household chores, bills, laundry, etc., have become time "at work", and because of the Wi-Fi access, those rooms are now just another place to trade memos, glued to a computer screen.

The best and most effective managers know that their subordinates

*need* that quiet time: indeed, the chance to close a door and be alone with my thoughts was one of the best parts of being on the road.

We've lost "Machines should work. People should think."

Bill

On Tue, 7 Jul 2015 17:24:34 +0000 (UTC), Garrett Wollman stimulated the Moderator to write:

It costs something to provide electricity, and water, and television, and telephony, and heating (or cooling, all depending on the season), and soap, and linens, and freedom from roaches, bedbugs, fleas, lice, ants, and other vermin. That's why there's a price to be paid for a night's stay in a room.

Do I deserve to have a flush-o-meter on the toilet so that, at check-out, my bill can reflect each 4 gallons of water expended at each flush?

I don't think many people have any such idea. Myself, I do *my* most creative thinking while perched on the "throne", doing my business, or standing in the shower, under a stimulating stream of refreshing water. Charge me for the water I use and I might do less such creative thinking, or just flush or shower less, leaving your bathroom or me a tad smellier. Anyway, hotels don't do that (except perhaps for special Sauna rooms).

But charge me the same $15 per *day* for internet connectivity as I pay on a *monthly* basis for my DSL service at home, and you will find that the long-term cost of your one-time "found money" is "a"repeat client lost", for having chosen never to visit *your* money-hungry hotel again.

Cheers, -- tlvp

On 7/8/2015 8:22 PM, Bill Horne wrote: ...

That's conference-room Wi-Fi, a LAN for reaching people on site. We're really talking about Internet access for travelers; that's what the big chains charge for.

You forget, Bill, that to a road warrior, or to many of us whose work sometimes takes us on the road, the hotel room *is* our temporary office. The rest of our work, our responsibilities, doesn't stop just because we're attending a conference, or have some out-of-town meetings, or whatever. Nor do we have an office there to spend 9-5 at, as if that were how most of us worked. A business hotel is both a place to sleep and a place to work. It's our own responsibility to know when to get off the computer and find any quiet time we need. It's also our responsibility to take care of business. The hotels know that, and charge accordingly.

This is all very silly.

There's a simple reason why luxury chains charge an arm and a leg for Internet access: because they can.

The fact that you're willing to pay at least $100 more per night than at a discount hotel or motel means that you're not pinching pennies. Many of their customers are business travelers, they'll just put it on their expense accounts.

Why don't they charge for things like water, climate control, etc.? Because these have traditionally been included, and it's usually hard to get away with adding charges for previously free features (although this hasn't stopped the airline industry from adding things like luggage fees). Internet access, on the other hand, has long been viewed as an "extra" (like room service and the mini-bar, whose prices are also exorbitant), not a necessity for living like water and electricity. BTW, while hotels don't charge for maid services, many have recently started offering bonuses if you skip a day, which kind of amounts to the same thing.

Discount hotels, on the other hand, use price as their main marketing feature. Charging extra for something like this would cut into the only reason people go to those hotels.

Given the conditions in California, I expect to see hotels with free wifi and pay toilets.

R's, John

Yes, it's just business. I heard that in the early days of TV in rooms, there was a coin box next to set and a fee to watch TV. Years ago, a local telephone call from the room phone cost 50c when the payphone in the lobby was only 10c. (I don't know if they still charge for local calls today, or if they charge extra for long distance calls.)

I suspect that in a few years the wi-fi will be free and a standard feature of a hotel room, just like A/C, TV, and a phone are now standard.

A computer and the Internet are tools, just like a pocket calculator, a voice telephone, and a telegraph line are tools. Sometimes a business person will have a lot of work to do and spend all night working with those tools, other times a person will briefly check their email. In the old days, a business person would often have a telephone glued to his ear. Indeed, I remember being at a hotel that frequently would page guests, and had loads of housephones in all public spaces, even scattered around the pool deck, for guests to take calls.

The Bell System had developed special PBX's to serve hotels, which included direct lines to toll operators to expedite long distance calls. Large hotels had a Western Union DeskFax machine for telegrams.

[snip]

Back in the 1960s, some business people wrote that they wished they could escape the ringing telephone (Ref "Up the Organization" by Robert Townsend).

As to thinking of new ideas, certainly quiet time does help creativity. But a new idea for business often needs to be fleshed out, and there a computer can help fill in the details - check facts and assumptions, do calculations, and help organization thoughts.

But even some discount motels have those horrible little "safes" that cost an extra $1.00 to $1.50 per day whether you use them or not. I've encountered them in Holiday Inns and Super-8s, but at least they took the charge off the bill when I complained. But TraveLodge -- at two different properties -- refused to take the charge off the bill, stating, rather impertinently, "it's mandatory."

I have never stayed at a TraveLodge since, and I will never again stay at one.

Neal McLain

Here is a *perfect* example of why you need to be careful about the costs of the "always on" society.

Any hotel that wants to attract repeat business knows that a Concierge is an essential part of the customer-care team. (S)He provides a service which is utterly impossible to program into a computer.

Hypothetically speaking, let me suppose that you take a flight to Paris with your spouse, for a vacation. Shortly after takeoff, the captain announces that because of a warning light and an abundance of caution, he is landing at JFK airport in New York. You find yourself and your spouse listening to an airline representive who appolgizes for the inconvenience and the warning light and the time of day, and then assures you that you're being put up in a great hotel in Manhattan, courtesy of the captain and his overabundance of caution, and that you'll resume your flight the next day.

So, you're in Manhattan at a hotel, on the first day of your vacation, with nothing to do. Your spouse suggests that you both make a night of it, and have a great dinner and see a Broadway play.

Like every sensible new age spouse, you agree.

Now (pay attention, there will be a test at the end), there are three ways that you can obtain tickets for a Broadway play on a few hours notice:

1. You could stand in front of the theater with a 0 bill held up in your hand and shout "Tickets" as the patrons arrive.
2. You could use a computer to access the various online ticket agencies, and select from the offerings they have available for that evening: most likely, a set of split seats at a play that is more "off" Broadway than it is "on".
3. You could visit the hotel Concierge and let him handle it for you.

The odds of success increase dramatically when you pick choice #3.

Why?

Option #1 is, at best, incautious. It's not likely to produce the results you want in the timeframe you want them, with an acceptable level of risk.

The computer is more efficient, and will have all the available seats listed, right?

Wrong. Scalping is theoretically illegal. The computer programmers know that. The computerized ticket agency knows that. The theater knows that. You will seldom find good seats for a sought-after play on the day of the performance by using a computer.

The hotel Concierge has business associates in the ticket agencies. They know that they can trust him not to burn them or inform on them. He knows that he can trust them not to burn him or inform on him. Most importantly, the ticket agencies know that if they don't deal with him fairly, he will blacklist them and they will lose a lot of high-end, last-minute business.

The odds are that the Concierge will get you tickets to a Broadway play for that evening. It is /understood/ that you will pay extra, because he is providing not only the tickets, but the promise that they are not forged, not stolen, and will be honored for that evening. *His* reputation, and that of the hotel, is the guarantee.

A computer can't do that. A /computer/ can't build relationships or make friends. Only /people/ can do that.

My wariness about having always-on connectivity comes down to this: it is measured not by what is gained, but by what is lost. We lose, just by the fact that computers are involved, the human capability to empathize with errant travellers whom are asking for help because of a warning light that they didn't cause and can't control, *OR* with a customer who orderered the wrong class of service and needs help only a sympathetic human can provide: the ability to *break* the rules, not just follow them.

It's good business to pay attention to what the /people/ want, not just what the programmers want. In-room WiFi is "nice" if it gives me access to the Cisco website when I'm too keyed up to sleep and want to know the environmental loads of an 5000-series router. It is utterly useless to connect me to /anyone/ whom I could trust to help me find tickets to a play.

WiFi costs extra. That's understood: the price is irrelevant when compared to the value of my time. Being clipped to an electronic leash which obligates me to pretend that I have answers to complicated questions available at every moment of my life costs a /lot/ extra. Which option is better for a business is left as an exercise for the reader.

Bill

1. You go to the TKTS booth in Times Square like everyone else. It's New York, and this is a long-solved problem.

-GAWollman

Conversely, those safes are usually free at high-priced hotels (I think I've only seen a charge for them once). I'm surprised that discount motels have them at all.

Probably most people who stay at discount motels don't have fancy valuables that need to be locked up, so this is more of an "extra". Since it's not an expected feature, it doesn't figure into the price comparison equation.

I've never been to a luxury hotel that doesn't have a concierge.

I tried that, /once/. I wound up in a "Broadway" theater, with an entrance next to a bodega and up a flight of stairs, which was being repaired and had carpenters' tools atop ladders that spanned some of the seats. I don't remember the performance, which is a good thing.

No self-respecting Concierge would have ever let me within a mile of that place. A computer would have had no problem, though.

My point stands: the TKTS booth could easily be replaced by a web site, with equally poor results. Being "Always On" does *not* mean I'm "connected".

It's definitely not an "expected feature" but it does indeed "figure into the price comparison equation." Just because they don't disclose it up front doesn't remove it from the price comparison equation.

Neal McLain

Who may be taking a cut and is selling top dollar tickets for high rollers.

There is a group of theaters that are formally "Broadway", by union contract and membership, and regular theater fans know which they are and aren't. Seats are tight but they're well-maintained. Listings also distinguish between Broadway and Off-Broadway, some of which are physically near Broadway the street. The union contract caps Off Broadway at 499 seats. Some are nice, some are a bit funky. And "Off Off Broadway" can be anything.

A computer would have no problem, as you say, which is why computers in guest rooms are even useful for vacationers.

While I've used TKTS, I usually prefer NYTIX.com, where they list what discounts are available for advance purchase. It indicates which are Broadway and which are Off Broadway. And the web sites that sell tickets (their fees being annoyingly high, to be sure) have seat maps, so you can pick your seat. Well worth the $3 for a month's membership, which I pay when I am going to go to NYC. Or from my hotel room, via the in-room computer access. Having my trusty laptop with me takes off some of the pressure.