From airport lounges to rental car locations to restaurants, wireless-fidelity hotspots have become an increasingly common sight for laptop-lugging business travelers, but it is the hospitality industry that leads the charge in making the technology widely available. Information technology research and consulting firm Gartner Group in a report released last month said, "Hotels remain the leading Wi-Fi hotspot locations, with more than 60,000 places across the world."
While such hotel brands as Hilton, Hyatt, Omni and Kimpton, among others, have made wireless Internet access the standard across properties, other companies, including Marriott, busily have been making strides to roll out the technology across most hotels.
Hyatt last year began an aggressive rollout to bring Wi-Fi to public areas across more than 200 properties. Since it announced the rollout last year, Hyatt said it is making wireless connectivity a brand standard. A spokesperson last week said all but a handful of its domestic properties boast Wi-Fi in public spaces, while 110 properties also offer such services in guest rooms. The company is in the process of enabling the few remaining hotels yet to offer the service.
Meanwhile, Omni Hotels and Kimpton Hotels in recent years also moved forward to make Wi-Fi the brand standard, making it available throughout domestic properties.
Hilton Hotels & Resorts in 2003 started rollout of wireless Internet technology across its properties, initially launching high-speed wireless Internet access at roughly 50 properties during a 30-day span. Since then, the technology has become prevalent among its properties in North America.
Even companies that have not yet made Wi-Fi the standard are deploying the technology.
Elsewhere within Hilton brands, Doubletree said it is in the process of reaching its year-end goal of installing wireless high-speed Internet access in hotel lobbies, lounges and restaurants. As of last month, Doubletree said 135 of its properties offer Wi-Fi in public areas, with roughly 15 more to go before the end of the year. Meanwhile, Embassy Suites has installed wireless Internet connections at more than 80 of its 175 properties.
A Marriott spokesperson said that though the installation of wireless connectivity has not been mandated among its network of hoteliers, the company clearly is moving in the direction of more pervasive Wi-Fi availability.
More than 2,100 of Marriott's properties worldwide now offer Wi-Fi, representing more than three-quarters of its total properties, a spokesperson said last week. Of those, 800 hotels offer such services in guest rooms, while others have rolled out the technology in public spaces and meeting rooms.
The wireless technology also is sprouting at less obvious locations at some properties.
Barbara Piagari, director of sales and marketing for the Le Meridien Sunny Isles Beach property in Miami, which opened in May, said the property has installed Wi-Fi hotspots on the beach.
The expansion of availability of Wi-Fi technology throughout the industry is mirrored by the growth of such Wi-Fi vendors as Wayport. The Austin, Texas-based company claims to be the largest provider of wireless fidelity, and in August said it has launched Wi-Fi services at more than 10,000 locations worldwide, yielding more than 12 million customer connections.
Wayport has worked with such hotel brands as Doubletree, Embassy Suites, Four Seasons, Hilton, Loews, Marriott, Sheraton and Wyndham and provided wireless Internet access at international airports including Austin Bergstrom, Dallas/Fort Worth, Minneapolis-St. Paul, New York LaGuardia, Oakland, San Jose and Seattle-Tacoma, among others.
Despite the growth of the technology, a recent survey concluded that most business travelers do not use Wi-Fi services offered in public spaces, including airports and hotels.
Gartner Research last month released a survey of 2,000 business travelers based in the United States and the United Kingdom that found less than one-quarter of those traveling on business use the technology.
"Public Wi-Fi hotspots have been available for several years and makers of laptop PCs have offered built-in Wi-Fi radio antennas for the past two," the company said in a statement. "However, Gartner found that users are abstaining from using the technology because of educational, cultural and financial reasons rather than technological apprehension."
According to the research, U.S.-based business travelers have more heavily adopted the technology than their U.K.-based—25 percent of American business travelers and 17 percent of U.K. business travelers use wireless Internet while on the road.
While the use of Wi-Fi has yet to reach critical mass among the majority of road warriors, some companies have placed a high premium on the availability of such services for their business travelers.
Intel's global corporate travel manager Sy Price has made the availability of the functionality a must among the company's key hotel suppliers. This summer Price told BTN that in its hotel program of more than 400 properties in 50 markets, 85 percent of suppliers by the end of the last year offered Wi-Fi. The number is leaps and bounds above the roughly 9 percent Price cited from 18 months prior
(BTN, June 20).