Advertisement

SKIP ADVERTISEMENT

BUSINESS TRAVEL

BUSINESS TRAVEL; MEMO PAD

Marriott International said yesterday that it had completed the installation of wireless high-speed Internet access systems in 400 hotels in the United States, Canada, Britain and Germany. Marriott said the wireless Internet service, commonly known as Wi-Fi, was available in hotel lobbies, meeting rooms and other public spaces. It said it was the largest such deployment in the hotel industry.

The company is charging $2.95 for the first 15 minutes of access and 25 cents for each additional minute.

Marriott also has wired broadband Internet service in guest rooms at 800 hotels; it charges $9.95 a day for access. Some other hotel chains that have been installing Wi-Fi networks in hotel rooms have been charging $10 to $30 a day for access.

Hotel industry executives say there has been a surge in demand this year for the service, whether wired into rooms or available through wireless systems. Soon, said Lou Paladeau, Marriott's vice president for technology-business development, ''if business-travel guests can't get high-speed Internet access, you won't get them in the door.''

With the summer travel season kicking into gear, airports are more crowded than they had been for a long time. But it isn't just vacationers who are driving the surge in activity; the evidence is accumulating that ''business travel is back,'' according to a spokesman for Rosenbluth International, a big travel-management company.

Rosenbluth says business-trip bookings are up 25 percent since the government declared the war in Iraq over, and they are now back at 2002 levels. Manufacturing, pharmaceutical and technology companies are leading the return, the company said.

Those desperate to make phone calls the second the plane arrives will shortly be able to use a cellphone a lot sooner on American Airlines flights. Effective next Tuesday, American said, passengers on most flights will be able to use their phones shortly after landing, while the plane is still taxiing to the gate.

American, a unit of AMR, said it worked closely with the Federal Aviation Administration to gain the changes on cellphone use.

The new arrival policy, which applies to flights arriving in the United States, the United States Virgin Islands and Puerto Rico, does not cover A300's and American Eagle turboprops. JOE SHARKEY

A version of this article appears in print on  , Section C, Page 6 of the National edition with the headline: BUSINESS TRAVEL; MEMO PAD. Order Reprints | Today’s Paper | Subscribe

Advertisement

SKIP ADVERTISEMENT