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More US Hotels Are Now Charging For Internet: The Good News? Breakfast Is Often Free
Free breakfast? Fairly likely. Free Internet? Less so, states a new survey from the American Hotel & Lodging Association and STR.The biennial survey shows that 23% of U.S. properties among a sample group of more than 12,000 charge for in-room Internet, up 8 percentage points from 2008. Luxury properties are most likely to charge for the service (84%), while no "midscale" properties charged for Internet. It's a fairly steep decline as one moves down the price scale, with 76% of upper upscale properties charging, compared to 26% of upper midscale and 18% of upscale hotels charging.
Along with this rise shows a jump in charges for fitness facilities – one in four hotels charge for these facilities, up from just over one in five in 2010.
Hotels are, however, more likely to offer free breakfast (79%), although an article from Business Travel News suggests that this shift is likely due to the re-organization of hotel type participating in the survey, writing that "[n]early all mid-tier hotels - 95% of upper midscale and 97% of midscale - offer free breakfast, as do about half of U.S. upscale hotels."
The survey also shows that despite the increased push for hotels to become more tech-savvy, many developments, such as mobile check-in and use of mobile devices for room keys have had little adoption, at 3% and 1% respectively.
Lobby check-in kiosks are also becoming a thing of the past. Now only 7% of hotels use them, compared with 28% in 2008.
[Flickr via mrkathika]
Filed under: Hotels and Accommodations, Internet Tools
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
Rupesh khanal Aug 21st 2012 3:35AM
That is often same in Nepal, be it the bigger five star hotels or simple guest houses, generally breakfast is included in the room price, ( most often they sell in B/B basis, bed and breakfast), and they have fixed the rate of internet.
Though, outside Kathmandu, in most of the places internet is given to the clients as facility of using and paying for the hotel.
Allan Aug 22nd 2012 3:08AM
Well, getting free internet and breakfast is pretty common in European countries. This is a very prime facility which is expected by most of the customers. Plenty of hotels and manor house hotels are providing such kind of facilities.