Social WiFi in the Hotel Industry

Hotel WiFi

Hotel WiFi is one of the most important selling points for any hotel. According to HotelChatter, 94% of customers consider WiFi as the most important amenity within a hotel! That is a huge figure, showing the importance of hotel WiFi to all customers, of different ages! Currently, 64% of hotels already offer WiFi. But the real question is, do you know how you can benefit from social WiFi as a hotel owner/manager?

This blog post will talk about; the different hotel sectors that can benefit from social WiFi, how social WiFi can work within a hotel including the benefits and problems and facilities within hotels, how to appeal your hotel to different audiences and more!

The different types of hotels

Chain Hotels

Large chain hotels like Marriott and Premier Inn offer WiFi services that are normally free and accessible for each booking customer. These hotels offer a standardised service to each customer and use a broader, mass marketing approach. If you are a larger chain hotel you can still gain all the benefits from Smarter WiFi. To see hows we have helped business with big names visit our case studies page.

Smaller Hotels:

Independent hotels in the UK with 2-5 sites lack in offering social WiFi. This is due to WiFi previously being viewed as a cost rather than a benefit. For smaller hotels, Social WiFi can help you capture data about your customer from their WiFi login. Capturing data this way is especially beneficial for small business who may not have any other data capture system in place. WiFi login is usually done through social media channels so this helps increase your hotels online presence. Social Media is a growing platform used by 3.48 billion in 2019. This is a huge opportunity to reach out to potential customers and retain past customers.

B&B’s and 1 site hotels :

These are the smallest scale type of hotel as they are usually smaller in size and offer limited bedrooms. These hotels and guest houses are great for short breaks and getaways for all the family! Offering social WiFi within these is a great selling point to many, as it will appeal to one of the world greatest demands; WiFi! Using Smarter WiFi’s social WiFi service on smaller hotels, allows TripAdvisor reviews to be published. TripAdvisor reviews allow your hotel’s overall rating to increase.

Appealing to the different audiences

When managing a hotel it is key to ensure every single customer feels welcomed and appreciated. There will be a target customer that each hotel tries to attract, but there will also be traction from different types of customers. This section of the blog will talk about how social WiFi can benefit all age groups.

Children:

Children do not tend to decide which hotel they are staying at, it is normally the choice of the parent however children do have a big opinion when it comes to their games and TV shows and what they find fun. Offering social WiFi allows parents and children to have an argument-free stay. The children can stay up to date with their favourite catch-up shows, or online games.

Teenagers:

Everyone knows the up-roar a teenager will cause when the WiFi goes down. The world will simply end if they can’t send that one Snapchat! Well this will not be a problem; with Smarter WiFi guests are free to use the WiFi for all social media channels. Smarter WiFi also offer redirection upon login that can take certain demographics to different social pages…it really couldn’t be simpler!

Young Adults:

Everyone knows how much people take to social media when customer service is bad, but we tend to forget to praise the ones who serve with excellence. Offering Smarter WiFi’s service in your hotel means those complainers have less to complain about and more to praise you for! Linking with this idea we can also explore the fact that Smarter WiFi offers a free integration with global review website TripAdvisor! This allows your customers to leave more positive reviews and increase your overall rating. 34% of diners choose a restaurant based on info from a peer review site. Make sure you’re increasing your 5* rating today!

Adults and OAP’s:

Now, we all know how much love Facebook has from those parents and grandparents! Facebook feeds are constant with people checking in -online and giving great reviews. Using this love for social media, social WiFi can help you increase your online presence. Customers will use the WiFi to check in to your locations and tell their friends about your service. This is inevitably the biggest cause of new and retained customers; word of mouth (but online)! Social WiFi also allows your customers to stay connected to the WiFi in order to check things that will affect their daily outings, like the weather or the traffic…be the best hotel today!

Facilities within hotels:

When using guest WiFi it is important to consider what facilities it will cover within the hotel. For larger hotels, you may want separate access points for separate parts of the hotel. For example, you can brand your restaurant independently from the rest of the hotel sending marketing materials explaining the upcoming offers and promotions.

Alternatively you can just have one access point but provide different marketing for your hotels different facilities. Below are some examples of different areas of a hotel and how this can be utilised through guest WiFi marketing:

Restaurant WiFi

You can provide restaurant WiFi that shows customers offers and promotions based on your different options or deals. You can provide guests with birthday offers through the restaurant WiFi providing free or discounted meals when they book a birthday stay with you! This is a great idea for those slightly larger hotels or ones who have an on-site separately branded restaurant.

Pool or leisure facilities:

Attract your guests to use your pool and/or spa facilities. Provide loyal guests with discounted entry to these areas or simple emails describing the rules and regulations around the pool area. Use social WiFi to be as informative or as persuasive as you like, the possibilities are endless.

Bar WiFi

Does your hotel offer cocktail deals or adult only nights? Show this to your guests by using bar WiFi. Bar WiFi not only meets the demands of your customers but allows you to send emails and texts directly to their inbox. Use limited time only vouchers to make sure your customers use your offers quickly!

Using our automated email service you can send emails to your past customers, current customers and set this by day, event and many other options.

The opportunities for different WiFi’s across your hotel really are endless, each access point WiFi login can be specifically branded to each part of the hotel. But don’t worry if you just want one access point, we can provide multiple different automated email set ups from one access point so you can still market the different facilities from the same place!

WiFi Analytics

Smarter WiFi is great for entertaining guests, marketing to guests and keeping your hotel expectations high. However, Smarter WiFi also offers WiFi analytics. The analytics and reporting that Smarter WiFi offer are based on the customer data management that you capture. Customer data comes from your guests using the WiFi. Once they log in, you are able to see a variety of different analytics based on your customers. Using these WiFi analytics, strategic marketing plans can be established based on different demographics. Providing WiFi analytics is great benefit for Social WiFi because understanding your customer base is equally as important as marketing to them!