Marriott International last month announced that by year-end it will start waiving fees for high-speed Internet access in four of its midprice hotel brands. Two of the brands—Courtyard and SpringHill Suites—target transient business travelers, while Residence Inn and TownePlace Suites target extended stay travelers. In addition, Marriott said it will waive the fees at a fifth midprice brand, Fairfield Inn, by year-end 2004. The five brands together total approximately 1,700 hotels, a majority of Marriott's 2,500 overall portfolio.
This is the first move by a leading multi-brand hotel company to absorb the cost of such a technological amenity as high-speed access into the basic room rate, but analysts expect that this approach eventually will become the industry standard.
High-speed connectivity remains important to travelers who want to be able to gain quick and easy access to their e-mail and hence stay connected to their offices while on the road. "Our customer research indicates that high-speed access will continue to be a high priority for business travelers," said Lou Paladeau, Marriott vice president of technology business development, "to the point where they'll choose a hotel based on the availability of high speed and the ease of the connection."
If, as some industry experts speculate, the cost of providing the high-speed connection eventually is passed on to the corporate account in the form of higher room rates, it still will save time for travelers since they no longer will have to list the fees as a separate item on expense reports. In addition, waiving the charges eliminates any traveler confusion as to when the 24-hour-a-day fee is in effect.
Like most hotel companies, Marriott had charged $9.95 per 24-hours for unlimited access. Marriott earlier this year rolled out a packaged approach at hotels in select markets where high-speed access fees were bundled with unlimited local telephone calls and U.S. long distance calls for a fixed daily charge.
Marriott's initiative comes at a time when hotel companies generally are raising, not waiving, the fees they charge for such value-added services as high-speed access. According to an analysis released in July by consultants PricewaterhouseCoopers, hotel companies are implementing the increases as a discreet way of boosting revenue, short of raising rates. "Faced with slow recovery of demand, flat occupancies and continued declines in average daily rate, hotel companies are opting to raise or, in some cases, institute these fees," said Bjorn Hanson, global leader of PwC's hospitality and leisure practice.
For its part, Marriott specifically chose its midprice brands for the initiative as a way of distinguishing Courtyard, SpringHill Suites and the others in the marketplace. The midprice segment of the lodging industry has undergone significant growth in the past five years with the launch of a number of new brands. Consequently, any opportunity a company has to separate its brands from the pack is welcome.
Marriott isn't the first midprice brand to adopt the complimentary high-speed strategy, though in terms of distribution its brands' presence is greater than others offering the service. For example, Wingate Inns International, which is part of the Cendant Hotel Group, offers free access as a brand standard. "We set out to be a brand that appealed primarily to business travelers," said president Keith Pierce. "Waiving high-speed charges seemed to be one of the best ways to establish that identity in the target traveler's mind." For travelers without laptops, each of Wingate's 128 hotels has a computer-equipped business center, where high-speed access also is complimentary.
Similarly, Hilton Garden Inn by year-end will offer high-speed connections in guest rooms free of charge. "Given the direction the Internet was taking, we made the decision five years ago to wire all the hotels," said Adrian Kurre, senior vice president for brand management. "At the time, we didn't know what use it would be put to, but we sensed that someday it would give us a competitive advantage."
Marriott said it has no plans to extend the complimentary service to its upscale core Marriott or Renaissance hotels, upper upscale J.W. Marriott hotels or deluxe Ritz-Carlton hotels. While the company's packaged approach, known as Wired for Business, no longer is available at the midprice brands, it remains in effect at select properties carrying these full service brand flags.