<B>Hotel Owners Get Wired</B>
By Bruce Serlen
In the same way that independent owners/operators of branded hotel portfolios have become involved in negotiating rates with travel buyers, they've begun striking deals in the past few months with outside vendors to install high-speed Internet access in their properties. And in the same way their negotiating attempts can run counter to the efforts of the chains whose flags their hotels carry (BTN, Sept. 4), their Internet deals can be at odds with the chains' own high-speed strategies.
Such independent owners/operators as MeriStar Hotels & Resorts, Sunburst Hospitality Corp. and Windsor Hospitality Group may not be as well known in their own name as Hilton, Marriott or Bass, but they control large numbers of hotels at different price points. Meri-Star, for example, manages 224 hotels that include Hiltons, Sheratons, Marriotts, Westins, Radissons, Holiday Inns and Howard Johnsons. This fall, Meri-Star announced a deal with Wayport Inc. to begin providing high-speed access in its guest rooms in both wired and wireless formats. Installation should be completed by the end of the first quarter of next year.
It's well known that high-speed access is of significant interest to business travelers because they want to get to their e-mail quickly.
"Our strategy is to use technology to improve guest service and, thereby, optimize travelers' productivity and the hotels' profitability," said David McCaslin, MeriStar president.
In the same way, Sunburst and Windsor have struck high-speed deals in recent weeks. Sunburst, which operates 79 hotels, partnered with SuiteStar Corp. to provide a wireless solution, while Windsor, with 24 properties in its portfolio, is working with CAIS Internet on its high-speed rollout.
With travelers under increasing pressure from their companies to be productive while on business trips, the move to high speed makes sense. "We feel this room enhancement demonstrates our commitment to offering the most advanced services for today's busy traveler," said Mike Cryan, Windsor president and COO.
The hotels also are well aware that high speed is a means of ensuring repeat business among frequent business travelers. "Not only do we enhance our guests' experience across our entire multibrand portfolio, but we further build loyalty to our properties," McCaslin said.
In choosing their respective vendors, however, the owners/operators, in many cases, have chosen a different provider than the chains whose hotels are in their portfolios. For their part, the chains actively are promoting their own high-speed solutions, thereby creating potential confusion among travel buyers--not to mention the end traveler--as to which system is in place where.
In Sunburst's arrangement with SuiteStar, in-room computers are included along with the high-speed access. Travelers also are able to access it through their own laptops. "Because it's wireless, the system completely bypasses the hotel's telephone PBX, so there's no costly and disruptive installation," said Stephen Marcus, SuiteStar CEO.
Because retrieving their e-mail has become such a high priority for travelers, travel managers want to be confident that high-speed access is available at every chain in their hotel programs. Furthermore, they want to be sure that travelers find the same level of ease and familiarity in accessing high-speed connections at every hotel in that chain. This doesn't necessarily mean different properties in a chain need to provide the same high-speed solution, only that ease of use should be comparable. In other words, travelers staying at a succession of Hilton Hotels, for example, should expect to find a consistency of service, regardless of the properties' ownership.
According to Bruce Rosenberg, senior vice president for e-business at Hilton, an owner/operator's contract with another high-speed provider would take precedence over a preferred provider that had contracted with Hilton. Likewise, in a scenario where there was an incumbent that already had a contract with a hotel or set of hotels that joined the Hilton family of hotels, that incumbent certainly would continue to provide service for whatever the length of that contract.
Originally, business travelers, determined to retrieve their electronic messages, used the telephone in the guest room to dial into the Internet. However, hotels quickly found that all the available telephone lines were getting tied up with business travelers going online. A system designed for calls lasting three-to-five minutes on average was being asked to handle data calls that could last three hours. This, in itself, hastened the move to high speed.
In the CAIS solution, for example, travelers "receive Internet access by simply plugging Ethernet cards into their laptops--eliminating dial up, which can cause costly phone bills, busy signals and dropped connections," said CAIS CEO Ulysses Auger II.
Wired or wireless solutions aside, the cost of installing and maintaining high-speed connections usually gets passed on to the traveler and, subsequently, to the traveler's company. For their part, vendors and hotels typically split the revenue generated.
One owner/operator out of three charges for the service. According to SuiteStar's Marcus, Sunburst will provide access free of charge. Industrywide, most full- and limited-service chains have been opting for a daily charge for 24-hour, unlimited usage. Deluxe chains, hesitant to be seen as "nickel-and-diming" travelers, tend to absorb any costs into the daily room rate. When a fee is charged, it tends to be $9.95 a day.