The importance of hotel WiFi access points

Hotel WiFi is a vital amenity for your guests. As such, it is important to have various hotel WiFi access points strategically located throughout your hotel.

A survey conducted by Statista found that 89% of hotel guests believed free and seamless internet access was important. Another survey carried out by Hotels.com found that 56% of business travellers listed free and fast WiFi as the most crucial factor in choosing a hotel. Additionally, guest reviews that highlight poor WiFi connectivity are known to result in loss of bookings for both luxury and economy hotels.

We have helped many brands and independent hotels at every service level to deliver exceptional Hotel WiFi by strategically placing hotel WiFi access points throughout their hotels and making sure their hotel WiFi meets their brand standards. All of the hotel brands we work with know that their guests stay at their hotels expecting superb hotel WiFi, especially those who stay for business purposes and use their conference rooms. Consequently, these hotel brands have prioritised hotel WiFi and their guests are now able to enjoy excellent and consistent hotel WiFi speeds.

Areas this article will cover:

• What are hotel WiFi access points?
• Why hotel WiFi access points are important:
  • Building loyalty by offering exceptional hotel WiFi
  • Opportunities from hotel WiFi
• Hotel WiFi is not only for your guests
• The ideal setup for hotel WiFi access points

What are hotel WiFi access points?

Hotel WiFi access points are wireless network devices that extend the wireless coverage of an existing network. They increase the capacity for additional users without slowing down internet speeds. A single access point will typically support between 20-100 devices and the average user has over 3 devices, i.e their smart phone, laptop and tablet.

Why hotel WiFi access points are important

Hotel WiFi access points are important because they provide your team and your guests with fast, reliable and consistent hotel WiFi.

By delivering excellent hotel WiFi to your guests you are able to:

• Build brand loyalty
• Benefit from the opportunities posed by hotel WiFi

Building loyalty by offering exceptional hotel WiFi

As a hotelier your aim is to provide a unique, outstanding and seamless guest experience in order to gain guest satisfaction and loyalty. Achieving this is difficult in itself, but it is even more difficult considering how much choice of hotels guests have. To stand out from your competition you need to deliver exceptional services in every aspect of the guest journey. A certain way you can deliver on exceptional services is by providing fast, consistent and easily accessible hotel WiFi.

As we established above, hotel WiFi is an important decision-making factor for choice of hotel and repeated bookings. Regardless of whether your hotel guests are on a business or leisure visit, they expect to connect, stream, watch, download, work and play without complication, limitations or interruptions. Therefore, by delivering a strong and consistent hotel WiFi experience you are able to obtain a satisfied and loyal guest who would be looking at making repeated bookings and referring your hotel to their work colleagues, friends and family.   

Opportunities from hotel WiFi

Hotel WiFi offers hoteliers many opportunities, including:

• Positioning services or products to guests in the form of free advertising.
• Social media referrals.
• Gaining more customer reviews on popular booking websites like Tripadvisor, Expedia and even Google Reviews.

When your guests access your hotel WiFi they usually have to access it via a sign-in/sign-up portal. You can leverage the use of this portal by getting your guests to download your hotel app, or by displaying advertising on the portal itself with deals or products and services you offer.

As the owner of this medium, you are able to do as you wish. Some hoteliers use the opportunity of a portal to influence social media referrals from their guests. For example, a user takes a picture of themselves in your hotel and uploads it to their social media platforms with your brand’s hashtag, or by tagging your brand to their social media post.

Additionally, you can leverage these portals to acquire more guest reviews on the various different travelling sites like Tripadvisor, Expedia and even Google Reviews.

Your hotel WiFi is not only for your guests

Hotel WiFi doesn’t only impact your guests’ experience; it also impacts your hotel operations. Hotels everywhere rely on seamless operations in order to deliver an excellent guest experience. Slow networks can have a negative impact on the speed and efficiency of your hotel’s operations and will undeniably affect your guests’ experiences.

Here’s a short list of technology that may depend on your hotel WiFi access points, each of which require fast internet speeds and capable bandwidths:

• CCTV
• PMS
• Credit card machines
• Tablets
• Remote workers
• Web-based platforms
• Housekeeping
• Remote check-in
• Concierge service

The ideal setup for hotel WiFi access points

Ideally, hotel WiFi access points should cover all areas of your hotel. You can easily provide strong and consistent hotel WiFi by installing multiple hotel access points in rooms where WiFi is used most. For example, in each guest room, conference rooms, reception, etc.

It is important to note that coverage does not guarantee capacity. Therefore, you’ll need a network design that is able to:

• Use all the available spectral capacity.
• Reduce co-channel interference.
• Use a higher band frequency such as 5GHz.
• Distribute users with load balancing.

Before you setup your hotel WiFi access points, you will need to understand the requirements of your hotel WiFi. You will need to identify:

• The different device types that your guests will use and their wireless capabilities.
• Establish data rates and frequency bands.
• Find out the maximum throughput that each device on your network can reach.

The next steps would be to:

• Figure out the data throughput required by applications in your network.
• Establish a network load.
• Virtually segregating guest and corporate traffic.
• Make sure your hotel WiFi wireless signals are strong throughout your hotel.

In conclusion

Hotel guests all over the world have extensively adopted wireless devices. When visiting your hotel, they expect strong and easily accessible hotel WiFi. To acquire a loyal customer you must ensure a pleasant guest experience. To do so, you need to have IT experts who are able to:

• Plan your network effectively, covering all areas of your hotel.
• Establish strong and consistent wireless coverage throughout your hotel by deploying technological solutions that are capable of handling the needs of your network.
• Gather requirements of your network and design your network with great detail.
• Provide ongoing optimisation of your configuration and maintenance of your network.

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Cardonet have helped many hotels establish solid IT strategies and provided them with seamless IT support. We have proudly helped many hotels overcome their hotel WiFi access point concerns as well as their technological challenges. Our highly experienced and friendly team of engineers are available 24/7 to assist you.

We are here to answer any of your questions and address any of your IT concerns as well as ensure you are getting the best IT Support for your hotel. If you are spending too much time dealing with technology issues and if those issues are affecting your hotel operations, call us on +44 203 034 2244 or +1 323 984 8908. Alternately, you can contact us online. We will be happy to help you overcome your IT challenges so that you can set your hotel apart.

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