Almost 90% of these travelers expect free Wi-Fi to be available as part of their accomodations. Over 40% report that they have never paid for Wi-Fi in a hotel and 65% report that they have used Wi-Fi in hotel lobby’s and other common areas to avoid additional room charges for the service.

93% of the hotel representatives surveyed reported that they do offer some variety of free Wi-Fi for customers. Also of interest, over 50% of travelers claim they have canceled reservations because they found other places to stay that did offer free Wi-Fi.

The second most important factor in deciding to stay at a hotel was whether breakfast was included in the stay, followed by the availability of guest loyalty points. The number four factor was the availability of nearby restaurants. And finally, the number five deciding factor was the availability of some form of shuttle service.

Hotel representatives and customers alike, rated the above five items as the most important factors in deciding what hotels to stay at. This reveals, at least in the hotels surveyed, that representatives truly understand their customer’s needs.

In fact, according to a study reported on by CNN, if you want cheap and/or free Internet while staying at a hotel, you would be wise to avoid the five star offerings, and stay at cheaper hotel instead. According to the report, most of the higher end hotels charge customers a premium for Internet access, which, after paying in excess of $500 a night to stay, is pretty ridiculous. It becomes even more silly when you realize the cheaper hotels don’t go that route, instead preferring to “comp” Internet access for their customers.

From the findings:

Three-quarters of luxury and “upper upscale” hotel chains — segments that include brands such as Four Seasons, Hilton and Marriott — charge for in-room Internet access, according to the American Hotel & Lodging Association 2010 Lodging Survey conducted by STR Global.

In comparison, just 2% of full-service midrange hotel chains — a segment that includes brands such as Holiday Inn — ask you to pay a fee for surfing the Web in your room, the survey found.

Clearly, the lesson here is avoid the big time hotels if you’re a business traveler who needs to connect to the Internet while in your hotel room. This becomes even more obvious when the reason why these expensive hotels charge a premium for Internet access–because they can.

Granted, the sheets and pillows at the four seasons are better than they are at the Holiday Inn, but is luxury the motivating factor when deciding on a hotel or is affordability? Obviously, if you’re paying for $500 a night, you can probably afford to pay for Internet access, but the question is, why would you? Especially when less expensive hotels don’t gouge customers in such a manner?

As with most things related to supply and demand, as long as these customers willingly pay for their Internet access, these expensive hotels will continue to charge for it. If business travelers began eschewing the more expensive hotels that charge for cheaper places that don’t, it’s easy to see these charges either reducing or disappearing altogether.

The question is, are these kinds of travelers willing to swallow their pride and stay in cheaper hotel that has free Internet access or is the allure of the local Four Seasons just that hard to overcome?

By searching for hotels on Google Maps, users will be able to plug-in dates they plan to stay and see prices on selected listings.

Google’s Lat Long Blog offers more details. "You can click on the price to see a list of advertisers who have provided pricing information for that hotel, indicated by the "Sponsored" text, and click through to reserve a room on the advertiser’s site."

"By showing you this relevant hotel rate information directly in the Google Maps results panel we hope to make this aspect of your trip planning more speedy and efficient."

Google emphasized the new feature will not change the way hotels are ranked in Google Maps. While testing the feature, Google said it is working with a limited number of advertisers and it will only be visible to a small number of users. If the test goes well Google said the feature will be made available to more users over time.
 

Hotel guests spent 60 percent more time online and downloaded 50 percent more data, based on tracked packet and session length information. This confirms the predictions from an iBAHN- commissioned, 2009 study of business travelers conducted by Ypartnership.

Ypartnership found more than two-thirds of frequent business travelers have downloaded music onto their computers (67%) while nearly 60 percent have downloaded video. More than half have downloaded news (54%) or entertainment (52%). Downloads of video and music consume considerably higher bandwidth and data than the average email or browsing session.

"The implication of this trend for hoteliers is profound as it clearly points to the conclusion that the "free to guest" model of providing free access in all locations of the hotel at all times to all guests is economically unrealistic given guests’ differing bandwidth needs," iBAHN said.

"Because costs for bandwidth continue to increase exponentially, hoteliers will continue to see higher overall expenses related to their broadband offering, without commensurate benefits in either daily rates or occupancy."

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"We believe the (online) companies are, essentially, pocketing the money that should go to occupancy tax," Mayor Bill White told the Houston Chronicle. "It’s unfair to those who are paying the price where the full taxes are paid."

The lawsuit is similar to one in San Antonio that won approval for class-action status this week, allowing other cites in the state and nation to join the suit. Houston says it will pursue its own case for now.

If the lawsuit is successful, White said it should not hurt tourism in Houston. "The Internet companies are obligated to charge a certain percentage of what they’ve collected," he said. "It should not affect hotel rates."

Hotels in Houston are required to pay the city the hotel-occupancy tax of 7 percent, based on the price of the rooms they sell. The city brought in $57 million in occupancy taxes in 2007.

On Tuesday, a federal judge granted San Antonio’s motion for class-action certification in its lawsuit against 16 companies including Hotels.com, Expedia.com, Priceline.com and Orbitz. The San Antonio suit alleges the online companies collect hotel tax at the retail rate but only pay taxes on the bulk wholesale rate they are charged.

The companies maintain they do not control occupancy and only offer a service for customers and should not have to pay the difference. They say the suit could hurt tourism.

"It just doesn’t make sense that increasing the costs of travel won’t decrease the amount of travel," said Paul Chronis, Orbitz’s lawyer. "That’s pretty basic stuff."

 Farecast Hotels features Hotel Rate Key, a pricing comparison tool that allows users to see if they are receiving a good value on their hotel. The feature flags hotels as a deal or not a deal.

"Where should I stay? Am I getting a good deal? These are important questions when shopping for a hotel," said Hugh Crean, Farecast’s president and chief executive officer.

"No other travel search site offers expert advice and information to help you make the right tradeoffs and smarter hotel purchase decisions."

The initial beta version will use historical rates and offer Hotel Rate Keys for more than 5,000 hotels in 30 major cities in the U.S. for up to 90 days in the future. The Hotel Rate Key compares individual hotel’s current rates to its past rates for the same travel dates and other travel dates on the same days of the week.

Along with the Hotel Rate Key, Farecast users can shop 80,000 hotels in cities around the globe. Farecast Hotels provides an interface with tools to help users find the hotel they are looking for. Features include searching current hotel rates and detailed information on the hotel properties. Mapping property locations in your destination using Microsoft Virtual Earth and filtering to narrow search results, sort by listings or identify hotels close to an address, or point of interest.

A search for “Excalibur Hotel,” for example, yields a result just above the number one spot that is marked with a “Yahoo! Shortcut” tag.  The number one result, which is for the same medieval-themed establishment, then has a dropdown menu featuring links to a map, seven photos, and over 600 user reviews (most of which recommend visiting the Excalibur).

Of course, not every hotel will be as popular, and Greg Sterling found that some of them get pretty skimpy Shortcuts.  After giving screenshots to prove his point, Sterling writes, “It would thus appear that Yahoo is experimenting with results to see how users interact with them.”

Internet Marketing Monitor’s Derick Alan did some investigating, and found, “[I]t appears that Yahoo! is looking for these specific criteria before adding a drop-down menu to the results: The hotel must have it’s own URL . . . .  It must have reviews on Yahoo! Local . . . .  It must have more than one picture on Yahoo! Local . . . .  And once these criteria are met, only the first result to be listed gets the special treatment.”

Assuming that this isn’t the final setting for Shortcuts, the company hasn’t announced what’s in store.  And even if these spotty Yahoo Shortcuts do represent a finished product, they’re a nice feature.

Traveloctiy Tweaks Hotel Review Tool

The new tool allows travelers to sift through reviews to find information in a wide number of categories that include, families, couples, with young kids, with teens, mature travelers, solo women, group of friends, with disabilities, with pets, other vacationers and business travelers.

Travelocity’s new hotel reviews include a screening process for all reviews based on traveler’s interests and needs. User’s create a customized profile and give feedback on what is important to them when they travel. For example people with young kids can provide comments on hotels that are child friendly.

"With this launch, we have taken user-generated content to another level," said Noreen Henry, vice president of hotels and packaging for Travelocity. "Travelers do not have to scour the Web anymore for credible, relevant opinions – our new hotel reviews meet those needs."

 Travelocity has also added to the review tool 16 categories on amenities and services that allows user to leave comments on local cuisine, events and activities.

"Paired with Travelocity’s vast global hotel content, our revamped hotel traveler reviews allow travelers to find the right hotel for their needs and gather insight from travelers just like them," Henry said.

Yahoo Search’s Lingxian Ding wrote of her European vacation daydreaming at the Yahoo Search blog. Her ideal holiday of two weeks abroad leads into using Yahoo to find places to stay.

The word ‘hotels’ triggers the new shortcut on Yahoo Search. Results it finds for queries like ‘hotels Barcelona’ appear immediately under the sponsored results box.

From the Shortcut result, people have the option of clicking price ranges or hotel class links to see results for those choices. Four of the most popular hotels for the destination have links available in the Shortcut result as well.

Visitors can search by brand name in a city to see results for properties under that brand. Our query for ‘Hilton Orlando’ delivered the Shortcut box again, with a map and markers for three Hilton properties. Those three hotels have their names and contact information, plus user ratingsand links to additional details, listed next to the map.

It’s enough to make you wish you were anywhere but the office.

Hotel search marketers should keep this new shortcut in mind. Hotels that appear in the list as most popular essentially receive a free boost to the top of Yahoo’s search results. Ones that don’t should consider ways to enhance their popularity with the Yahoo users in their clientele.