iPass has published its Q3 Mobile Workforce Report, detailing how mobile workers around the globe ranked, in order of importance, hotel Wi-Fi, as second only to having a comfortable bed.
Wi-Fi has become a "must-have" for business travelers, trumping other standard amenities such as hotel restaurants, in-room mini-bars, and gym facilities. The report not only points out that Wi-Fi has been elevated from a simple amenity, but its importance is directly influencing where corporate travel dollars are spent for lodging and airfare.
"Wi-Fi is a disruptive technology; it changes the way we work," said Evan Kaplan, CEO, iPass. "This report spotlights some of the key trends driving that disruption, such as the proliferation of Wi-Fi-enabled devices and access to bandwidth-hungry business applications like cloud apps, video conferencing and other unified communication tools, which demand quality internet connections and define productivity for corporate travelers around the globe."
The report drew two key statistics. One, that People do not have good Wi-Fi experiences when travelling, in hotels and on planes – and that Wi-Fi is an increasingly critical factor in their selection process when choosing a hotel or airline, and two, People are working a lot on holiday. As our own holiday season comes to a close, the report shows that only 8% disconnect completely from the office at all whilst on holiday – and over half engage in serious ongoing work, rather than brief email checks, and they are paying through the nose for it.
Other stats concluded that Availability of inflight Wi-Fi influences the travel decisions for 30% of respondents. Similarly, 75% agree that an unsatisfactory Wi-Fi experience would prevent them from returning to a hotel and 73% said that availability of Wi-Fi is one of the top 2 most important factors in visitng a hotel, second only to having a comfortable bed.
The report also delves into holiday working habits, showing that the vast majority of people are connecting to work whilst on holiday and only limit the use of non-essential applications.
Business travelers have come to rely on Wi-Fi as a primary source of connectivity, a trend brought on by the wide spread use of connected dependent mobile devices and the enterprise applications needed to get the job done. Corporate travelers are driving the demand for hotels, airlines, and other public facilities to provide a high quality, affordable, and easy-to-use Wi-Fi to maintain seamless connectivity no matter where they go.
