Wifi and mobile: the hotelier’s twin peaks

By Steve Keenan

I spent an informative afternoon last week with hoteliers from Small Luxury Hotels of the World. Around 40 gathered in London, with social media the topic I was there to speak about.

But I had a couple of takeaways, too: wifi and mobile, two topics that have concentrated hoteliers’ marketing minds in the past year, alongside SM and guest reviews.

In a workshop with one group of 20, a Greek hotelier said that he had just gone wifi free for guests, having previously charged (the charges paid for the installation of around £18,000). In a show of hands, not one of the SLH hoteliers said that they still charged.

Surprising? A little. But it seems that luxury hoteliers have caved in to demand, given an article from Tnooz yesterday, which said that Intercontinental Hotels has also announced free wifi for guests who are members of its loyalty scheme.

Looking back, the whole cycle of the wifi argument has taken less than five years, from should we? to how much? to can’t afford to be at a commercial disadvantage cos Johnny down the road has it for free.

The cycle of switching to mobile bookings is only halfway through, however. SLH revealed figures which showed that in January, 30% of research on its site was from mobile platforms in the UK. When it came to booking from a mobile device, the figure was 19.8% in the UK - compared with just 7.1% for the same month last year.

Digging deeper into the stats, 89% of UK bookings from a mobile device came via the iPad, with 6.5% from the iPhone and the rest Android devices. And the UK is ahead of the market. Worldwide, 14% of all bookings in the last half of 2012 were made by iPad, iPhone and Android, up from 7% across the same period in 2011.

“It’s worth pointing out that SLH has only just launched a dedicated mobile booker, making it much easier for people to book via mobile devices. We expect to see an even greater surge in mobile bookings going forward,” said a spokeswoman.

So while the cycle is still in the relatively early stages, the progress towards bookings on mobile is clearly illustrated:

SLH website visits in January 2013 v January 2012

According to SLH, the results “do not come as much surprise” considering that the UK has one of the highest penetrations of smartphones in the world, according to Ofcom. As of December 2012, 58% of the population has a smartphone and almost a fifth (19%) owns a tablet. The iPhone is the most popular device capturing 29% of the UK smartphone market.

Wifi, ticked off. Launch of mobile booking app, ticked off. That’s those two covered. Now, about this social media. And should we allow guests to post unmoderated reviews….?