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There are certain things I must have in a hotel room.
Apart from a comfortable bed, room service that delivers a decent hamburger, a window that opens and an air-conditioning system that blows a force-10 gale, there’s not too much more I ask for.
Except free internet.
I’ve just returned from a 10-day work trip through Austria where I laid my head upon soft pillows, swapped the hamburger for wiener schnitzels and worked from my room in bliss, accessing the complimentary internet connection.
But here in Australia I get slugged up to $30.00 a day just to connect.
By charging me exorbitant fees for a connection, some of which are incredibly dodgy, my first response is to check out and never return.
With the rapid explosion of personal mobile technology, the hotels are losing out.
The reason is simple. They still charge hugely inflated prices for phone calls – old tech, sometimes reaping up to 500 percent profit. Now, nearly everyone has a mobile phone or phone card, which substantially cuts the cost of communications. So the greedy hoteliers miss out on a once reliable revenue stream via the humble blower. By charging a huge whack for an internet connection, they’ve found a clever way to recoup their loss.
And so it is.
We now have a dubious internet connection with a tent-card of complicated instructions on how to connect and explaining that a fee of $29.95 will be charged to your account (for your convenience). Most connections are still not even wireless.
So, for a huge cost, one can sit in the room and finish off the day’s work, order that hamburger from room service and plough through those emails.
Or avoid paying the price, work offline and duck out to an internet café in your jimjams later. Download, send and receive. And save yourself $27.50
But let’s be fair. Some hotels make a concession to guests’ technological needs.
Free wireless, but only in the lobby.
How stupid is that?
Here, amongst the marble and plush décor are dozens of desperate communicators trying to access their emails while balancing their laptops on their knees. Some talk loudly through their crackling Skype connection and some try to work through complicated spreadsheets.
It’s free and worth every cent of it!
The lobby looks a mess and has become a de facto office – cluttered, busy and annoying to everyone. But if the hotel installed free wireless connections in the rooms, their guests would be happier. First, they’ll return and become repeat customers. Second, they’ll increase their spend by using room service and the facilities in the room more and, third, they’ll stop cluttering up the lobby so it doesn’t look like a call centre. Not to mention referring the hotel to other potential guests.
It’s a narrow view these hoteliers have – a quick, short-term buck in lieu of building a lasting relationship with guests.
They need to connect with the business traveller!
Kevin Moloney is an Australian-based professional travel and lifestyle writer and author of A Hasty Retreat, a novel detailing the life in a weekender in Central Victoria.
Need to vent? Have your say… rant@australiananthill.com
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