This is an article I wrote for a UK hotel trade magazine.

As hotels in the UK gear up for the Olympics in 2012 and an overall increase in business travellers from around the world, many are facing challenges to provide a world-class internet service to their guests. Gone are the days when a dial-up internet service in the bedroom will meet the needs of a business guest.  Today’s discerning traveller expects high-speed, always-on, secure internet access throughout the hotel property. In fact, a recent survey by Trustive Europe revealed that 45% of travellers would select a hotel based on whether Wi-Fi was available – so hotels without a reliable Wi-Fi solution are potentially loosing out on over half of all business guests.

In addition to the speed of access, travellers insist on reliability.  There is nothing more frustrating for a guest than choosing a hotel that advertises Wi-Fi only to check in and discover a slow, unreliable or faulty system or worse still, that Wi-Fi exists only in the hotel lobby.  To make matters even worse, many guests report little or no technical support available when they do experience problems logging on to the internet or if they have a problem using a corporate VPN over the hotel’s Wi-Fi network. Read the rest of this entry »