Business guests must be well connected

By Bob Gledhill and Sara Guild

Hotels must offer business travellers the ability to use their hotel rooms as offices, or risk losing their custom.

That was the warning given by Robert Cotter, president of ITT Sheraton's European division, to delegates at technology conference Eurhotec 1997, held in Amsterdam last week.

"In three years the business traveller will refuse to use a guest room that is not as efficient as his home," Mr Cotter claimed.

The modern business person now operated with a laptop computer and a modem link to the office, he argued.

Hotel rooms that did not have multiple telephone sockets and ISDN lines - able to handle large quantities of data quickly - would see guests checking out in favour of more technologically friendly hotels.

He revealed that the most requested item at ITT Sheraton hotels was a telephone socket adaptor, which enables US modems to work in European sockets.

"This is no longer state of the art, or ahead of the game, this is now," Mr Cotter said.

And it is not only modern office facilities that travellers are demanding. Leisure options are also much sought after.

Movies on demand, computer games and access to the Internet were the three most required services, according to Anders Grevby, a partner in Swedish hospitality management consultancy Grevby & Galstad.

• The Internet is going to produce "virtual hotel chains" with existing groups forming loose strategic marketing alliances, according to Dietmar Müller-Elmau, owner of Schloss Elmau Resorts.

The power of the consumer to purchase direct from hotels on the Internet will mean that groups seen today as direct competitors will in five years' time be forced to market their products alongside each other, he argued.

"We will see virtual hotel chains: they will not have anything in common other than the Internet site," said Mr Müller-Elmau, who also developed the property management system Fidelio.

John Cahill, vice-president of Inter-Continental Hotels & Resorts, agreed that the Internet would lead to a blurring of hotel groups' branding.

"It's a scary thought for people like us who have spent 15 years building a separate brand image and customer loyalty," he said. "But the ability to sell direct to the consumer is forcing a change in the way people are thinking."