Can your Hotel´s Free WIFI be a better revenue generator without major investment?

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It is has been clear for some time now that guests all seem to be keeping one major criteria as their deal clincher when choosing a hotel or resort; there has to be free Wi-Fi!

Some of the common guests’ reactions:

“Location – negotiable

Complimentary Breakfast – flexible

Airport transports – doesn’t matter

Swimming pool – preferable but can work around it

Free Wi-Fi – absolutely

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Both business travellers and leisure guests give topmost priority to their laptops, ipads, and smartphones while packing their bags. There is always an urgent need to be “connected” at all times possible, whether it is to know your synchronised meeting schedule, send/receive emails or give timely updates on social media – you just need to have good connectivity.

“Hotels.com released a survey where hotel guests ranked free WiFi as the most important in-room amenity.”

For solo travellers with limited budget, taking an international data pack tends to be quite expensive hence they prefer to frequent hotels/restaurants where they can find free Wi-Fi. Apps like Square Register, Viber, Whatsapp, Facebook, Instagram, Yelp!, Office Mobile, Google Maps help travellers keep up-to-date with information. If they have to function without them, they wouldn’t know where to go, what to do, which meeting to attend etc.

Hotels across the globe have changed their modus operandi and are offering free Wi-Fi to their guests, since they realized that guests don’t look so too happy when charged extra for Wi-Fi. Independent hotels can benefit immensely if they offer free and effective Wi-Fi to their guests.

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But ok, most of you reading this have already done or in the process of providing Free wifi, but what most hotels have not done is turn their wifi into a revenue generator!

Lets take this example, you are waiting to start boarding your plane home at an airport, desperately trying to connect to the free 15 or 30 mins of WIFI that the majority of airports provide.  You connect to the service via a social media channel or via an online form to get you up and connected.  You do it in seconds and in return you get your free surfing time, fantastic!!

But hang on a minute though, why can´t hotels do this?  So when a client checks in, he connects to your free WIFI service via his social media or a online form.

With this information, not only could you interact in a different way with your clients, you also gain important information that you can feed into marketing database.

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Just imagine this scenario.  A couple are enjoying a morning coffee at your cafe bar, they are non residents, so have not registered at your reception, so you do not have their email information in order to promote your great food and drink promotions you may have.  By allowing these clients to connect to your hotel´s or Resort´s WIFI via their social channel or online form, you now can and to both of them!!  You could also ask them to review your service and installations.

So take your Free WIFI to the next level and start generating more sales, interact with your clients in new and dynamic way whilst increasing your marketing database.

Now on to the great news, It will not break the bank to get this installed as well as up and running at your hotel.  Contact Hotelient to get a quote for your own branded social wifi. Starting at less than a euro a day to capture contact details of everyone that accesses your WIFI!  For further info email us info@hotelient.net

About the author

John Kearney has over 20 years of Hotel Sales and General Hotel Management experience working for both Independent 4 & 5* Hotels & Resorts as well as with Intercontinental (IHG) and Radisson SAS for Hotels based in London as well as across Spain.

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