MEXICO CITY—In today’s hospitality landscape, high-speed Internet access (HSIA) is one of the top requirements of most guests meaning hotels have had to keep up with a demand that is increasing very rapidly.
“According to recent statistics from Cisco, by 2014 Internet traffic volume will eclipse 2009 levels by 300 percent, with an estimated 91 percent of traffic being video-based,” said Mark Holzberg, managing director, XETA Hospitality Solutions. “Additionally, 50 percent of video traffic will be in HD or 3D by 2014. These figures aren’t specific to the hospitality industry, but they certainly indicate the type of demand operators will be experiencing in the coming years. Hotels also face the issue of guests carrying more and more IP enabled devices that require bandwidth – it’s not uncommon to have guests using PC’s, an iPad and iPhone or Blackberry all at the same time.”
With those kinds of numbers, hotels are starting to up their game. One such group is the Presidente InterContinental Hotels, based here in Mexico. They recently completed a transition across all of their properties to a system provided by Motorola Systems.
“It is a completely different solution in terms of service, cost, response time, security, and user and admin portals,” noted Juan Manuel Romero, IT director of Presidente InterContinental Hotels. “It has also allowed us to develop an automatic interface with PMS, and we have increased our bandwidth four times over. Also, because standard users and guests have passwords according to names and rooms, every single user is autonomous from each other. We can now offer VIP service with different bandwidth for each guest, and we can create temporal services with special settings for various special events and catering. Our coverage is now much more complete, and includes restaurants and public areas. Stability is part of the game, and we now have more than 99.9% of high speed Internet service available.”
According to Romero, the group decided to change because it wanted to improve overall guest satisfaction at its properties. And to that end, he noted, it has worked. Guest satisfaction is up overall, and, he said, revenues are up 23 percent over last year.
Romero also noted that the new system gives them the ability to offer a customizable set of solutions to guests or groups. The service is paid right now, although, he said, they are looking at offering a very basic package that would have slower service and less bandwidth, but be free, in some public spaces.
Holzberg backed up this model, noting that, “Generally, select-service hotels have offered HSIA for free and full-service properties have charged a fee—usually in the $9.99 per day range. However, that dynamic has been changing and getting a bit more sophisticated, especially as bandwidth requirements continue to grow. Many select-service hotels will offer basic HSIA service for free but will offer increased bandwidth for a premium. Full-service hotels are moving toward tiered bandwidth at different rates as well, and many are coupling this with unlimited telephone calls. Several of the major brands are making free or discounted Internet service a component of their guest loyalty programs for elite members. Levels of bandwidth and rates can also be set and varied based on location within a property—areas such as the hotel lobby may have a free, lower-bandwidth level of HSIA and areas such as meeting rooms, which usually have to support larger bandwidth consumption, will have fees associated with usage.”
The place to start, both men noted, is with picking the right provider to partner with. “We evaluated five brands and technologies and the most stable, flexible, easy to install and profitable service was Motorola Solutions. The complete evaluation process took us six months, but we are very comfortable with the results,” noted Romero.
Holzberg agreed, noting, “It starts with picking the right HSIA or network managed services partner. Properties need to be sure their selected HSIA partner is designing, installing, updating and supporting a network infrastructure that can not only meet the current property and guest bandwidth and application demands but also keeps in mind the rapid growth of applications and bandwidth consumption needs for the next 36 to 48 months. Planning for increased bandwidth consumption will help keep future network upgrade and maintenance costs to a minimum.”
All in all, high-speed Internet access is at a point where guests don’t just want it, they expect it when they check in to a property across any service segment. And while it started out as demand in the guest room alone, it’s now moving to other parts of the hotel. “HSIA access in hotels is now essentially ubiquitous—the percentage is in the high 90% percent range,” said Holzberg. “As I do this interview, I am sitting in a resort property in Mexico with wireless HSIA available throughout the property, including at the pool and beach area – and I’ve used it every day.”
The breakdown, Romero noted, is still fairly standard in terms of what guests use the access for right now. He noted that checking e-mail and accessing corporate VPNs make up 35 percent and 25 percent of the overall usage at his properties, respectively. From there, 10 percent are checking in to social networks, 9 percent are just surfing the Web, and 22 percent are doing “other.” That other category is likely to be the fastest growing, as it includes such activities as streaming music and movies.
