Photo courtesy of Amba Hotels Facebook page
You've heard the expression "Location, location, location."
Well, according to a recent study by London's four-star brand Amba Hotels, that may as well be replaced with "Free Wi-Fi, free Wi-Fi, free Wi-Fi."
In a survey of more than 1,000 UK travelers, 67 percent of respondents said free Wi-Fi would make them more likely to choose accommodation, compared to 65 percent who valued the location of a property.
On top of that, 60 percent of UK travelers focus on whether a property has fast, free and unlimited Wi-Fi when rating a hotel. That's compared to 58 percent of travelers who highlight whether they had a good night's sleep and 40 percent who stress the level of service.
Obviously, Wi-Fi is used heavily to check directions (54 percent of travelers) and access work emails (49 percent), but-interestingly enough-checking social media was the No. 1 reason travelers use Wi-Fi (58 percent), another sign of how times are changing (after all, you haven't posted a Facebook update in how long?!). Also, 43 percent of UK travelers use Wi-Fi to research local travel tips and 31 percent use it to make Skype calls.
In that respect, it's no wonder why more than a quarter of UK travelers (28 percent) complain about slow or frustrating W-Fi. More than four-fifths (84 percent) of survey respondents indicated they have suffered as a result of slow hotel Wi-Fi or sluggish buffering: 33 percent have had trouble sending or receiving important work emails, 27 percent haven't been able to contact home (see: Skype calls), 19 percent haven't been able to check flights and nearly 10 percent have actually lost a client or business opportunity because of slow Wi-Fi.
Yeah, it's safe to say slow Wi-Fi can make life miserable for travelers. When business is being lost due to inadequate Internet connection, it's time to bring out the pitchforks.
In response, Amba Hotels has placed a premium in delivering high-quality, fast and unlimited Wi-Fi to its guests. In fact, Amba Hotel Charing Cross was recently deemed to have the fastest free, unlimited Wi-Fi in the world among Meetings & Events hotels by HotelWiFiTest.com (expected speed of 184 Mbps, max speed of 510 Mbps) and RottenWiFi.com (average download speed of 134.3 Mbps, average upload speed of 90.7 Mbps).
To give you an idea of how fast that is, Hotel WiFi Test currently deems a hotel to have "adequate" Wi-Fi speed if it has download speeds of at least 2 Mbps and upload speeds of at least 1 Mbps. Safe to say, Amba Hotels is taking its Wi-Fi seriously.
And, given the results of the brand's recent survey, so should other hoteliers.
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