Our company, Hotel Internet Services, recently conducted a survey of over 1400 people who were guests in hotels across the US recently and who had used Internet services at those hotels during their stay. The purpose of the survey was to gauge public opinion within this group towards various aspects of guestroom Internet services and technologies.

When asked how important it was for them to have guest room Internet services at the hotel where they stay, 92% said it was very important, and 8% said it was somewhat important.

When asked if having guest room Internet services available influences their decision to stay at a particular hotel, 71% said very much so, and 25% said somewhat so.

So for business and leisure travelers, having Wi-Fi Internet services in their room is extremely important, and with over two thirds, having this service influences their decision on where to stay.

When asked if they prefer Wi-Fi or wired connectivity, 69% said they preferred Wi-Fi, 10% prefer a wired connection, and 21% have no preference.

Interestingly, when asked what minimum Internet connection speed they would be happy with, 30% said 1.0 Meg, 29% said 512K, and 17% said 1.5 Meg or more and 14% said 768K.

When asked what problems they had encountered in the past with guestroom Internet services, 77% said poor signal coverage, 33% said the Internet was down, 29% said access points were down, 20% did not have patch cables to plug their laptop into the wall jack and 17% said that the hotel did not provide call center support to help them get online.

When asked what in-room technology features are most important to them, 61% said a large plasma or LCD TV, 29% said an in-room computer with a printer, and 24% said video on demand.

When asked how important VPN (virtual private network) connectivity to their work was, 44% said it was very important, 28% said it was somewhat important, and 28% said it was not important.

On the operating system front, 67% are using Windows XP, 21% are using Vista, and 9.6% are using Macintosh OS X.

So what does the survey tell us? For hotel administrators and IT staff, it tells us that a large percentage of travelers who bring a laptop with them on their trip, require Wi-Fi in their room, and having this capability will influence their decision on where to stay. A smaller percentage prefers a wired connection. The Wi-Fi has to have good signal coverage, as this was the number one complaint about the services they had used in the past.

So clearly having Wi-Fi capability is a competitive edge for hotels in the 21st century.