the dominoes are about to fall | free internet coming

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Nov 20, 2014, 6:00 pm

#31

uclabruin82

Join Date: May 2005

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Quote:

Originally Posted by Zephyrous

I don't understand the two-tiered internet offerings either. This is 2014, IP connectivity is cheap and even mobile devices have become bandwidth demanding. Thanks for letting me check my email for free but do I really have to pay in order to watch a youtube video when Starbucks down the road offers it for free? Do the people who make this decisions live on this planet?

For me announcements like this read as follows: We (i.e. our sales and marketing departments realising that we are losing customers to the four star down the road due to our outdated policies) are pleased to announce that we will offer a bottle of water for free in each room per day. Any extra bottle will be charged at £3.50. Soft drinks remain at £7.

This is just my theory, so take that for what it is worth. A while ago I was doing a deal for a company that provided movies into hotel rooms. The revenues were split in some fashion between the hotel company and the hotel, so the hotels made good money from this as it was all pure profit. An interesting fact I learned during due diligence is that adult entertainment was about 95% of revenue and the average time watched for a movie was 12 minutes.
So the hotels are not trying to stop you from watching a clip on YouTube, it is the adult movie sites.
The the issue becomes either raising the rate and giving free wifi or charging for it. One thing to consider is that companies have caps on hotel rates, but will let employees expense internet. So by not giving it away for free you keep the rate lower and bring more people, and the traveling businessman who needs 12 minutes of streaming will pay for it.