Good Wi-Fi affects future hotel choice by business travelers
Tuesday, December 14th, 2010 Marcio Avillez, VP Network Offerings
Does a good Wi-Fi experience affect a business travelers’ future choice? You bet it does!
We recently surveyed over 1,100 mobile employees about their business travel and how the availability of Wi-Fi at hotel affects their decisions on where to stay. From the data, we have found some interesting trends.
In our Mobile Usage Data for Q3 2010 of nearly half a million monthly users employed at 3,500 enterprises, we found that hotels continue to be the most popular place to log in when on the road. The length of the average session is now tied at #1 with convention centers for 86 minutes. This means more than a few quick emails are done while staying at a hotel.
- 79% of mobile employees return to the same locations on business trips. This number goes up for employees 45 years and older, and these same employees travel more for business.
- A poor hotel Wi-Fi experience impacts 36 percent of business travelers on whether they book that specific hotel in the future
- 95 percent of business travelers care if there is Wi-Fi or a wired connection in a hotel
- Overall, 51 percent of mobile employees prefer to book at hotels with Wi-Fi and 14 percent find Ethernet acceptable, while another 24.4 percent assume it is available.
- More than half of mobile employees tell the front desk if there is a problem with their Wi-Fi. 37 percent will choose or avoid that hotel in the future, and another 17 percent will avoid or seek out the entire hotel chain based on a negative or positive experience.
Digging deeper, we looked just at mobile workers that said that they took the time to check if Wi-Fi or Ethernet is available at their hotel. These travelers were 20% more likely to book at or avoid this hotel or chain based on their experience, and 26% more likely to complain at a travel guide website.
This is completely in-line with our earlier post about JD Power and Associates’ 2010 North America Hotel Guest Satisfaction Index Study that showed that hotel guests indicate that wireless Internet access is their #1 Most Important Amenity in all but one hotel segment.
So, in closing, we found that mobile employees and business travelers do care whether there is Wi-Fi and their satisfaction will impact whether they come back and whether they tell a friend.
QR Code
To see these statistics and more, make sure to download
our free Hospitality Findings Report: Hotels Stand To Lose Repeat Business with Poor Wi-Fi Service.
And see one of our executives, visiting one of our Wi-Fi-enabled hotels whilst in London.
