As should coffee shops but then that’s a different rant.

If you want to satisfy your guests for relatively little cost, free Wi-Fi is about the best thing you can do. Time and again it comes up as one of the most desired, frequently the most desired, amenity that hotels can offer.

If you cater to business travellers and don’t offer any in-room Wi-Fi, make some changes. Quickly. Motorola Solutions’ recent study The Growing Importance of WiFi in Hotels found that over 90 percent of business travellers want Wi-Fi access in their rooms. And a third of all business travellers said they won’t even bother returning to a hotel that doesn’t offer it. Leisure travellers are only slightly more forgiving.

Guests will understand if you charge a modest fee for the super fast internet connection but they do expect serviceable speeds as part of the price of the room.

Offering free Wi-Fi at properties catering more to casual and recreational guests is a key social media plus. Properties that don’t offer Wi-Fi, or charge unreasonably high fees for slow connections, get flayed in avert-your-eyes bad reviews on TripAdvisor and other travel sites.

Some guests have concerns about the security of hotel Wi-Fi systems. They’re not being picky, they simply pay attention to the news. Make sure your staff know what security measures your tech team or Wi-Fi provider take. That way, if guests ask, you can tell them with assuring confidence.

One possible reason for not offering free Wi-Fi to guests is that it cannibalises other revenue streams. Several high-end hotel chains, places you’d think would offer free Wi-Fi, actually charge for it, because if guests are watching movies on their laptops they’re not using the in-room entertainment systems, and if they’re Skyping they’re not using the hotel phones. That’s lost revenue.

But most properties will find that the advantages of offering guests free Wi-Fi will far outweigh the drawbacks of charging or not offering it at all.