You’re going away for the holidays and want to be able to check your emails, pay some bills and perhaps even update your social media using the free wi-fi service offered by your hotel. However, a survey by iPass questions the effectiveness and safety of hotel wi-fi.
Craig Lowe, execMobile founder, says, “73% of the 1 400 respondents surveyed, aged between 22 and 54, highlighted the need for connectivity saying wi-fi was important. However, 81% of users reported having a bad experience with hotel wi-fi in the past year, while 82% stated that they found free hotel wi-fi services to be limited, slow, and unreliable.”
While service quality was a huge issue, 73% stated they were distrustful of public wi-fi, whether free or paid, and raised concerns about the security on hotel wi-fi networks.
Furthermore, 69% of respondents stated they were nervous to place payment information into a hotel wi-fi paywall on their browser.
And yet while people are more apprehensive about using public wi-fi, Lowe says the need for connectivity is going up. In fact, survey respondents went as far as to say that reliable wi-fi was a basic need and they’ll base decisions on where to spend money on a hotel’s ability to meet those needs.
Wi-fi is so important to travellers when staying in a hotel that they rated it the second most important factor—after a comfortable bed!