Will's Web Watch: Why hotel web access should be free

In this wired world, hotels - especially those that cater to business travellers - should offer free internet access to their guests. Will Sturgeon counts the many reasons why.

The nature of my job as silicon.com managing editor means I'm travelling a fair bit and as I write this I'm back over in the US, logged on and communicating with the office courtesy of free in-room wi-fi provided by the Four Seasons hotel in Palo Alto, California.

That's right... free wi-fi, in a hotel. Whatever next?

It shouldn't be remarkable but sadly it is. In my experience the Four Seasons is still much more the exception than the rule, when logic dictates internet access should absolutely be given away free, especially as hotels in areas such as Silicon Valley and similar destinations pitch themselves at the business traveller.

This isn't like the in-room pornography which should remain ring-fenced on a pay-per-view basis (though it could seriously be argued that free internet access would cannibalise that revenue stream). This is something which, to the business traveller, sad as it may seem to admit, can be as important as the bed linen and towels that you also reasonably expect to be covered by the room charge.

Wireless internet access is a service that a hotel could - and should - provide free of charge. At around $400 per room per night, the Four Seasons probably realises the 'cost' of charging $10 for internet access would far outweigh the profits from doing so.

I've stayed in eight or nine hotels in and around San Francisco over the past year and this area should, of any place on Earth, lead the way in such things as ubiquitous internet access and yet this is only the second place I've stayed that provided such a service (how high can those pornography revenues really be?).

Incredibly, the only other place that provided free wi-fi was a flea-pit in San Francisco's Tenderloin District - certainly not aimed at the business traveller, or anybody with a sense of smell - which I really wouldn't recommend to anybody.

Internet access has become so cheap, so commoditised and so easy to provide, especially as many of these hotels in the normal course of their own communications infrastructure already have enough cable in and out of their buildings to tie a big bow around the moon. And yet many large hotel groups and independents appear to see more value in getting $10 off their customers for 24 hours' access than they do in adding a further incentive for that customer to visit again.

For $10 all they are really doing is annoying customers - a nominal charge it may be but as such it surely advertises its own pointlessness. Some even require you to go down to the reception desk to buy access cards. And while I concede there are people in Africa who walk 20 miles to collect drinking water these are, perhaps for shame, very different economic models.

Surely this is basic marketing. You could make $200 from your customers per night and have more happy customers, or you can get $205 per customer - assuming even 50 per cent want to log on and pay for the privilege - and disenfranchise a few of them.

And if that doesn't make sense to any hotel managers reading this, then consider the following piece of simple economics.

If you provide free internet access it is far more likely customers will choose to log on in their rooms than if you charge them for access they could pay for, or get free elsewhere. And by logging on in their rooms and eschewing other wi-fi destinations such as Starbucks it's far more likely they'll be eating from your overpriced room service menu while they work than choosing from Starbucks' overpriced coffee menu.

This isn't just a case of asking hotels to give something away free. There is a lot in this for the hotels as well.

Many offer loyalty schemes now because they see the value in repeat bookings and yet many large chains still charge business travellers to access the internet, which seems at odds with any notion of wanting to engender loyalty or create a plausible 'please call again' sales pitch.