Ranty Friday — Hotel internet

Last week I had a meeting in a hotel (stop smirking at the back!) where we perched in Reception for a couple of hours to have an offline discussion and do a bit of recruiting. I don’t get to see my main client that often as both our jobs are fairly mobile, and she’s not my only client.  Plus, well I often have important Tweets to send

Now, I like to keep on top of things even during meetings, so I had my laptop open and was checking emails.

We weren’t freeloading – we bought coffees and pastries at their hugely inflated prices. But then we had to pay £15 for an hour of internet usage.

I don’t pay that at home for a whole Month, so how come a hotel thinks they can charge EACH customer £15 per hour?

Obviously the rate for commercial premises must be much higher because Costa and Starbucks also charge…….oh, nothing.

Do you know, that when you hire a meeting room at Hilton, pay for pastries, pay for bottled water, tea and coffee, the internet access is extra? You’re having a meeting! Lots of companies have significant online operations now, so being able to access the internet during a meeting is, for many organisations, a bit like being able to breathe during a meeting. You don’t see them charging extra for oxygen.

Hold on, let’s just pretend I didn’t say that – don’t want them suddenly waking up to a “significant new revenue stream”, do we?

Let’s just go back to that £15 pp ph figure. So if we conservatively estimate that in a 250 room hotel, there are at any hour 10 people accessing the internet, that’s £150 per hour. £3600 PER DAY for a connection that’s bought and paid for.

That sounds like £3.5k of profit per day to me.

For an internet connection, phone line and a few routers (maybe 20?). So it pays for itself in a day.  IN A DAY

We’re all in the wrong business…….



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  • AMAZING!

    Why doesn’t everyone e-mail together at a pre-arranged time, then 2 minutes later, etc., etc.? We could all put the same Q about e-charges.

    Hopalong

  • It’s even worst when you are an actual hotel guest in a 4 or 5 star establishment. your 3 or 4 days stay is nearly the cost of a month mortgage but I find that often they know their customers might – God forbid – need to do some work and there is your £100 a day worth of wi-fi charges! It’s ridiculous. I hope you had a word

  • It’s crazy! I guess they’re cashing in on the need to access the internet and making an outrageous profit from it. I had the same on my recent trip to Scotland, it was nearly £10 to access the wifi on the train! If 80 passengers per journey pay that, that’s a lot of money.

  • WHAT?!?!

    Seriously!

    WHAT?!??!

    I’d have told them to stuff it and found a coffee shop or pub that lets you access it for free!

  • Seriously?! That’s ludicrous! Refused to pay internet charges in a hotel last week, may have camped out in a well-known cafe and consumed several free refill coffees until I’d caught up on Social Media!