I’m no longer a serious business traveler, that said, last summer, I took fairly long trip with my family. With the exception of ONE place, all had WiFi (the place that didn’t have it was SO far in the boonies that wasn’t even cell phone available, so)

The interesting factoid? The “Higher end” business type hotels charged for WiFi/wired internet, the Mid of the line were 50-50, and the couple of small little “tourist” hotels? Free wifi! (and at one,the diner next door used the same access point) – Yep, the little tourist hotels with 9-10 total rooms had free wifi, every one of them. No, you didn’t get a conference room. Heck, you didn’t get room service, but the rooms were nice, clean, and the help (usually one of the owners most of the time) were more than helpful

1. Usage of web-enabled devices continues to grow explosively.
2. An increasing number of guests see WiFi as necessity not luxury.

As some have stated in the comments, competitive pressures will likely make free WiFi happen anyway. So why resist and let it damage your brand?

See for example how the Lanesborough (London) is revitalising its image by reinforcing free WiFi with free Sony Vaios in rooms, tech butlers, etc. This in my view just makes competitors at similar room rates look out-of-synch.

It would be great to crunch some numbers on the reputational and competitive damage of charging for WiFi vs. ancillary revenues generated.

Anecdotally, I don’t think hotels that have moved to free WiFi have any regrets. I’ve had emails too from a few that haven’t to say they’re rethinking.

I’m optimistic the dominoes will eventually fall.

It isn’t a matter of economics, it’s a matter of greed.

Without intimately knowing various hotels’ business models, is it arguably fair or subjectively reasonable to conclude it’s just greed rather than economics or business sense? I recently discovered 2 hotels near my brother’s place where A offers free Wi-Fi at a higher room rate, B charges Wi-Fi at a lower room rate, yet both are seemingly doing good.

Or I guess some people don’t really care other than their own interests, anyway?

Usually, I end up doing without the wi-fi and the mini-fridge. Quite often I head to the nearest coffee shop, get a cup of coffee, and use their free wi-fi instead.

When I’m writing reviews of hotels, I do mention things such as those abusive charges. If I’m making reservations for a hotel in an area, I’ll ask about charges for parking as well as wi-fi, and I usually ask if they have a mini-fridge in the room (which I do tend to use a lot.) I will look for the hotel with the best combination of price and value, and I often let hotels know when they’re being greedy and losing my business. I don’t think that it matters – there are too many travelers for them to care about one unhappy customer – but if nothing else, they’ve been forewarned that they’re going to lose my business as well as everyone else that I talk to.

Of course it’s not a “right” to have free Internet, but I have the right to go somewhere else…and I will.

You’re correct: Wireless internet card is NOT inexpensive. The costs are around $800/year with a 2 year contract.

However, for the frequent business traveller, it makes a lot of sense. In fact, I don’t understand how any business traveller that spends more than 30 days on the road can live without it (unless they don’t want to be connected)

While its true that free Wi-Fi is available in many places, coverage is far from being universal. Worse, some places that used to offer free Wi-Fi are now charging for it (like McDonalds).

Also, with the mobile internet devices, wireless isn’t required for connections.

Let me clarify my point, hotels SHOULD offer complementary Wi-Fi. But to say that the more expensive and luxury hotels should offer more complementary services because the price is higher is simply not how it is. I love a specific Best Western we stay at. Its around $60-80 a night and has clean rooms, free parking, free Wi-Fi, full cable, and continential breakfast included. When we stay at a business hotel, we don’t get breakfast, it costs us $20+ to park, the wireless internet free is $15/night, and the hotel rates are double, triple or quadruple. Expensive hotels have never offered much complementary services. Its because it is catering to a different group of travellers.

So, bottom line, like Carver said, only if a hotel determines that offering free Wi-Fi will boost its bottom line, it won’t happen

I agree that the only way that full service hotels will offer free Wi-Fi would be if a major full service hotel offered it, most likely to get a competitive advantage. But then if everyone did that the advantage is lost so I doubt it will happen.

I think the more likely scenario, at least in the short term, is that different full service hotels will offer different options to different classes of high revenue customers. Perhaps all elite members, or members on the concierge level, etc.

The analogy would be breakfast. Each major chain provides “free” breakfast to elite members, but each does it slightly differently. For example, at Marriott, Platinum and Gold members get a hot breakfast during the week, while at Hilton free hot breakfast is provided 7 days a week to elites, but only if you are on the concierge level. Sheraton also provides breakfast 7 days a week for elite level members, but the offering may only be a continental breakfast.

To my knowledge, none of the major chains provides breakfast for everyone at the full service hotels.

I suspect that the first incarnation of free Wi-Fi will be similiar. Each hotel toying with a different version for a select group of high revenue guests.