BRYAN, TX— As part of a recent $6 million renovation program at the Hilton College Station and Conference Center here, the property opted to go wireless so it could offer a quick, reliable Internet connection to its diverse guest mix. The 303-room hotel and conference center, due to its proximity to the Texas A&M University and the George Bush Presidential Library, attracts not only educators, visiting faculty and research personnel, but also Texas A&M fans, potential students and business travelers. While varied, the property’s client mix is largely tech-savvy travelers, so the demand for wireless Internet access existed. The installation of StayOnline’s wireless Internet at the Hilton College Station marked the eighth for Lane Hospitality, the hotel’s privately-held hotel management company based in Northbrook, IL. “This project was fairly simple for us. We knew we wanted to implement wireless access and had a lot of faith in StayOnline, having worked with them on many other successful installations,” said Bryon Crowley, corporate controller for Lane Hospitality, “A lot of it came down to convenience for the guest. People don’t want to have a wire to connect to the Internet, or be restricted to sitting at a desk to work,” said Crowley. Prior to the new technology’s installation, the hotel offered four floors of wireless Internet access, as well as wired and wireless access in its 26,000 square feet of meeting space. Wanting to stay ahead of demand and be in the forefront of technology, the hotel spent approximately $32,000 on the wireless Internet approach during its capital improvement project, which updated its 303 guestrooms, lobby, public areas and restaurant. The wireless approach wound up being less expensive than a wired Internet system, said Crowley, “which would have cost us about $50,000 or so. The wired approach not only would have been more costly, but also more difficult to do.” The formal installation of the wireless Internet solution took only two days at the property, said Crowley, with much attention paid to equipment placement. “You have to make sure the deployment of equipment covers the entire property, so there are no ‘dead’ spots,” Crowley said. “We went with a combination of external and internal deployment.” The Hilton College Station wound up installing fewer access points than originally anticipated— instead of 12, the hotel went with eight— so the project cost less than originally budgeted, said Crowley. Since the hotel does not charge for the wireless Internet access in guestrooms, the return on investment will be hard for the hotel to measure. The only place the hotel charges for the feature is in its meeting rooms. “The way we see it is, our return on investment for this project will be guests returning to the property because they like what we offer. It really has gotten an incredible response from our guests,” Crowley said.
