IT IS late. You are tired and need to download a report from your company’s computer system. Your hotel boasts fast internet connections to rooms, so you should be able to get the information by logging into your firm’s network from your laptop.
Then you plug the laptop into the hotel’s cable and find that you cannot get the connection to work.
It is a common problem, according to hotel customer satisfaction surveys. Trials in guest rooms have found little take up of wireless systems, as most people are much happier plugging in.
Fast broadband access is the key facility that allows an hotel room to become an efficient temporary office.
However, users say that they can spend a couple of hours struggling to explain a connection fault to their company IT help desks.
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Liberating guests from fiddling with computers is seen as a powerful weapon to guarantee customer loyalty. Salesmen and executives are more likely to return if they are sure that their laptops will work in a particular hotel. iBAHN, an hotel IT network supplier, invited large companies to test how their internal systems performed over its network.
Graeme Powell, managing director of iBAHN, UK and Europe, says: “It is a nightmare trying to help a customer over the telephone. We can assure a company that we understand how its system works before an executive books a room.”
Hilton Hotels wired up all of its UK hotels with the system, which connects via an Ethernet link, after trials using domestic broadband supplied to hotel rooms failed. It charges £15 for 24-hour access.
In the United States many hotels give free high-speed internet access in guest rooms. Best Western is to introduce a high-speed broadband system this year in the UK.
Mike Goryl, Best Western’s UK head of IT, is urging hotels in the Best Western alliance not to charge for the internet access.
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“Eventually every hotel will have to offer it free,” he adds.
TOM ROWLAND