NB: This is a guest article by iPass, a US-based provider of enterprise mobility services.
After seeing a two-year slump, the travel industry is finally seeing a resurgence in air travel and an increase in hotel occupancy year-over-year.
However, the business traveler is still required to be more discerning, not only with travel arrangements, but also with productivity.
While the increasingly mobile workforce is more productive, working 240 hours more a year than the average worker, according to the iPass Mobile Workforce Report, there is also an expectation of always connected, always online.
Hotels need to ensure that the lucrative business travel segment has the wifi connections they need in order to communicate at all times during their stay.
In the third quarter of 2010 global business travelers spent 37% of their entire network connection time during business trips at hotels –the number one connection point for these busy workers.
On average they spent nearly 90 minutes connected each time they logged on.
The impact of wifi services at hotels cannot be underestimated especially when trying to ensure good business traveler retention rates.
Regardless of whether the wifi service is an additional paid service or a free service, business travelers need to access their corporate networks, communicate via email and use Unified Communication tools that enable them to perform productively in their employment roles.
Business traveler guests expect the same standard of service from a hotel concierge as they do from their wifi service and if hotel guests don’t get the network service they need – they will find another hotel that does provide good wifi service.
Do you check if wifi is available before you a book a hotel?
63% of business travelers check prior to booking a hotel whether a wifi or a wired connection service is available and 24 percent of business travelers presume a hotel has this service.
Only 5% of business travellers don’t care if a hotel provides internet connection, while a further 8% carry their own mifi, or mifi-like service, which allows a hotel guest to connect multiple wifi-enabled devices to their own 3G or 4G network.
Do you travel to the same locations or new locations on business?
Overwhelmingly most mobile workers return to the same destinations. 76% return to the same destination on business trips and 22 percent return to the same places frequently.
Approximately 12% of business travel is mostly to new locations.
How do you express your disappointment with wifi at your hotel?
While hotels are doing a good job of following complaints with hotel wifi problems (83% of business travel guests inform the front desk or fill out a card) it can still cost hotels dearly in terms of guest retention.
Nearly 36% of business travelers stated that a poor wifi service influences their decision to stay with that particular hotel again and for 16% it influences whether they book that hotel chain again.
Methodology:
The results of these findings are based on a statistical survey of nearly 1,200 mobile enterprise employees during the fourth quarter of 2010.
This online survey was conducted globally and represented business travelers from a number of large enterprises across multiple age groups. 48% of respondents were from Europe and Asia, while 47% of respondents were from North America.
The survey respondents were asked about their productivity, work habits, and related experiences.
NB: This is a guest article by iPass, a US-based provider of enterprise mobility services.