It is an obvious fact that the hospitality industry receives guests in their hundreds daily. They play hosts to these guests who have needs to stay off their homes or offices for various reasons. There are those categories who even work from their hotel rooms daily. While the hotel is home for many, it is an office for most people.
Whether is a home or office, the communication needs are still paramount and very essential with Internet topping the list of the demands.
Guests would always need internet service and a good one at that on their laptop computers and mobile devices like ipads, Smart phones etc.
It’s not as if these guests or visitors cannot afford to provide their own personal Internet medium but it is seen as a complimentary service, a value addition service that must be offered by the host, the hotel. After all, it is being paid for somehow.
How do hotels now provide the much needed Internet service? What options do they have and what skill level is required to manage the solution?
From one hotel to the other, the policy is different.
Some would provide free, unlimited or unhindered access while some would provide free but access to limited to a certain amount of data usage, There are some places you may need to pay to make use of internet service whether in your room or the facility’s business center.
In any case, there are two key procedure involved. Sourcing the Internet hardware or service from the Service Provider and distributing the service to guests. They are both technical processes, requiring careful planing, skills and expertise.
One common solution in distributing the service to guests in deploying wireless installations to provide WiFi coverage that is expected to penetrate the rooms since the guest will require the service in the lodging rooms under their privacy.
Rather assign web key or wireless passcode to guests, a professional Hotspot solutions provides a way of managing the internet service. One good thing about Hotspot is that it presents a login portal that makes it unique for the business. This uniqueness further promotes the brand.
The Hotspot makes it easy for authentication and can also be deployed in a number of ways to benefit the hotel.
1. Marketing
You can use it as a marketing tool to gather email address from users especially if you are offering free WiFi Internet service. It is not a bad idea if your guest supply email address in a form on the login page and then get a free internet access.
Most Hotspot systems offer a way of advertising your products and services to the users either by way of having them automatically visit your website, showing up per-defined advert page intermittently or displaying ads materials on the login page itself.
2. Social Media
Chances are that a great number of your guests have at least one social medial account including facebook or twitter. You can deploy the Hostpot system to get facebook likes or share content.
3. Bandwidth & Time Management
If you are concerned about data usage, the Hotspot system allows you the opportunity to control what is being used by guests. You can choose to limit by data usage or access duration.
Added features include blocking applications like online streaming.
In economic terms, this control can lead to great cost savings for your business
4. Security
The Hotspot solution guarantees only authorised access to your WiFi service. Everyone one can connect to WiFI and see the page but only authorised people can access the Internet.
5. Brand Promotion
Needless to say that you send a special message of class to your guests when they want to have access to the internet and the next thing they see is a welcome page showcasing your business brand, It shows the professionalism and high standards maintained by your business. This experience and touch of class alone could retain your guests and bring repeated business.
Moreover, depending on the strength and coverage of your WIFI service, there is every tendency that people outside your hotel can get to know where you are and the services you offer by seeing the page far off.
