In the past 60 days, I've stayed at an ultra-high-end spg property, the St Regis/Aspen, where rooms were $1500+ a night (holiday peak season; I was on points), and this property did not provide broadband. Though the concierge's desk, merely 30 feet away from my room door, had broadband, so I know broadband technology was available to the property location, somehow the property did not deem it worthwhile to provide it to guests' rooms. Instead, I was nicked for a $20+ charge for a single dial-up online session, not anywhere close to 56K btw, where I was guilty of the egregious act of staying online over the 30min mark, around 5:30AM on a SUNDAY AM, and did not think to log off at the 29min mark and then re-log on. SHAME ON ME. When, oh when, will these hotels realize that nicking guests for local-number telephone use is a -real - negative experience.

Contrast that to my Abilene, TX, stay at a Holiday Inn Express for $89, which included free continental breakfast, and what sucked me in, free broadband. I literally drove by equivalent properties for less money (other low-end chains, La Quinta, etc), which did not offer broadband, to select this specific property that did.

I will say on the record that broadband is becoming my number one screen when searching for a proprty, and not *free* necessarily, just *presence of*, both for business travel and for leisure travel. I am not asking for this to be a free service - yet. Someday I firmly believe it will be such a pervasive technology that any self-respecting *business class* hotel would not consider not offering it like they do a tv or telephone or bed for that matter...and lacking the technology will be an immediate differentiator to choose another property for business travelers, but I see that a year or more away. For the year of 2003, any self-respecting business-class property that can't at least offer it...is simply behind the times. Seems Holiday Inn Express has figured this out and taken it a step further to offer it for free as a value-add. Smart. What's up with the St Regis chain ? They can't at least wire-in 10 rooms, say, to offer for an extra fee ? I would have paid the fee without hesitation.

BTW - to timely underpin my perspective, check out today's headlines regarding Marriott and their nationwide rollout of WIRELESS broadband....which is how the St Regis/Aspen could make this technology available literally in 30days and for under a couple thousand investment if they so chose.

Guess this Marriott announcement will force a response from spg. They could have been pro-active from the start and been the LEADER instead of the FOLLOWER. Some initiatives are intuitively beneficial, outright impossible to avoid, and not to be ignored.

http://biz.yahoo.com/bw/030227/275140_1.html

[This message has been edited by ILUVCITIBANK (edited 02-27-2003).]