NEW YORK, NY – A new market research study from Ypartnership, one of the nation’s leading marketing agencies specializing in serving travel, leisure and entertainment clients, shows that more than half of business travelers are willing to pay for quality Internet service at the hotels in which they stay. The study is part of an in-depth look at travelers’ interest in in-room technology sponsored by iBAHN.

iBAHN’s deep investment in research has led to the development of the iTRAVELLER profile, a set of data that describes critical information about the requirements and needs of the American business traveler. iBAHN intends to share more detailed and specific results with key customers in private meetings during the next two months.

Among the key findings is that more than 50% of iTRAVELLERs are willing to pay for the use of high-speed Internet access (HSIA). Additionally, more than 80% of those surveyed indicated that their companies will reimburse business travelers for their HSIA usage purchase at hotels. Another critical finding is that 80% of iTRAVELLERs indicated that data security and privacy is very important to them.

“It is absolutely critical to ownership groups and management companies that each of their portfolio properties find ways to maintain the highest level of service and value to their guests,” said Gregory G. Hodges, iBAHN’s president. “Providing the best HSIA in the hospitality industry is one way to accomplish that goal.”

Hotel ownership and management groups should be particularly interested in these findings, as they work to find revenue during an economic downturn. The connection between these three data points is that hotels currently have the opportunity to differentiate themselves in their individual markets by providing highly reliable and secure HSIA options for their guests. Unfortunately, most travelers know that the majority of hotel wireless HSIA networks are not secure – in fact, in 2006 Gartner Group indicated that, of the networks they reviewed in the United States, only iBAHN and T-Mobile provided appropriate levels of security and privacy to their users.

Copyright 2009 Reed Business Information. All rights reserved. From http://www.hotelsmag.com.
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