With the rise of mobile phones, plus any hotel guest does call from his room. A loss for the hotel, which charges sometimes indecent communications with margins. Some have found a solution to compensate for the shortfall: charge for access to Internet.
“60% of the hotel offer the Web in their facility to their customers, providing Mark Watkins, president of Coach Omnium, research firm specializing in tourism. For now, about half of the hotels are equipped with pay around 5 euros per hour. Two out of three customers accept when they have no choice, but they find it outrageous. This is not a money problem. For them, it’s petty. ”
Paradoxically, economy hotels tend to offer the connection and it is the high-end hotels that charge the most expensive. “It’s a real income, even if the cost of facilities is high, admits François Delahaye, the owner of the Plaza Athénée, a Parisian palace. Today, it is worth 1 million euros per year to our nine hotels in the Dorchester Collection (including the Plaza and Le Meurice in Paris). But eventually we will have to provide free, because the Internet has become as natural for our customers to have hot water. ”
3.25 million connections Le Royal Monceau, opened brand new a year ago, and Fouquet’s Barrière already offer Internet to their customers. But the service reported 400,000 euros a year in Bristol. “There has always been a culture supplement in the luxury hotel business, said Mark Watkins. Internet is no exception. It’s absurd. “