We want better wifi.

I stay in hotels more than 300 nights a year. And I am amazed and disappointed how many upscale hotels still have really bad wifi connections at their place. In these modern times, having a good wifi connection is extremely important to business travelers. And holiday makers wants it too, so if you don’t get better soon, then you will go out of business.

Once upon a time: About 7-8 years ago. Wifi was a bit of a luxury thing. Something you mostly had to pay for. And something that maybe 10% of the guests in a hotel used. But these days it’s around 95% of the hotel guests that use it. Many hotel owners though still live in the past and think that a machine to polish your shoes, or room service is more important than wifi. IT´S NOT.

The pool was great, but the wifi sucked.

Dear hotel owners, forget about charging money for wifi.

Another nice hotel room, where it takes forever to get online.

Some hotels still have this old fashioned idea that they can make money from providing wifi to their guests. I have recently been charged 10€ to get online in my hotel room at a Hilton Hotel. It’s not the 10€ that matter. It’s all the signing in. Having to sit and play with my credit card drives me up the wall and I would never consider Hilton hotels unless I have an employer paying the bill, for that very reason. There might be a little bit of income from wifi in hotels that charge for wifi. But I can assure the owners of these places that they lose 5-10 times more money from lost bookings because of that. Business travelers do not want to sit and play with credit cards log in codes and that sort of crap when getting online. We want a one time code that keeps us logged in during our entire stay. Backpacker hostels can figure out how to do that. So 4 and 5 star hotels should be able to figure that out too.

And we want wifi in out room. Not in the reception area.

Almost all business travelers and most holiday makers are not happy with having to sit in a reception area, or a hotel cafe, to answer work mails. Not to mention making Skype calls and so on. We want to have privacy when we write other people or call them. We are not asking for wifi because we want to sit and look at Instagram photos. we want it because our job depends on it. And many use it for private conversations these days. The price difference between only having wifi in the common areas and having it in the room is so minimal that you could most likely pay for it by not offering complimentary shower caps. I can understand if a small 2 star hotel needs to save a few pennies to make ends meet. But a big hotel with dozens of room!!! Come on, listen to what the clients are asking for and not what you learned at tourism school 20 years ago, when wifi did not exist.

Backpacker hostels have better wifi than most 4 and 5 star hotels.

This hostel in Tirana has better wifi than most Hilton Hotels around the world.

I have had several occasions, the last one 5 days ago, where I ended up walking from a big expensive hotel, to a little backpacker hostel. Simply because there was considerable better wifi at the hostel. This is of course nice for the little cafe at the hostel who then get to sell me a few drinks while I am online. But it really makes the big hotels look like a bunch of amateurs, when their clients have to resort to a little discount place, for the service that has the highest priority among hotel visitors today, according to several surveys. Now, some people will probably ask me why I am not just staying at the hostels. I can say that I do often stay at hostels and small guest houses. I just needs to make sure that there is a single room as I am a little old and like to sleep naked. But when I am working as a tour guide and travel consultant for upscale travel agencies, then I need to stay at these hotels. Because this is where my clients are. And when I write this, then I am also talking on behalf of my clients. They are mostly elderly people on cultural and historical tours. 5 years ago, hardly any of these clients cared about wifi. Many of them did not even know what it was. But these days. Around 90% ask for wifi because they use it to stay in touch with the family back home, stay in touch with their doctor if they have medical issues and they use it to check in to their flights.

So dear hotel owners. Please wake up and realise that we are in the 21^st century and provide your clients with what they want. If you need to save money in order to afford getting a couple of extra routers, then I have a few suggestions. Throw out all these stupid old phones that we have on the night table. Because we are not using them anyway. And I also have a theory that the world can live without free shower caps and free shoe shine boxes. People who care about these things already bring their own anyway.

Best regards from a guy who live in hotel rooms +300 days a year.

Claus.

Cheers to better wifi.