Getting guest wifi right across every corner of your property

Reliable, high-speed wifi has shifted from a ‘nice to have’ amenity to one of the most influential factors shaping guest satisfaction and booking decisions.

Industry research consistently shows that connectivity is now viewed as a core expectation, on par with fundamentals such as cleanliness and location, for business and leisure travellers alike.

First published in the summer print edition of AccomNews. Read it HERE

The modern guest typically travels with three or more connected devices, including smartphones, laptops, tablets and wearables such as smart watches, and expects them to work seamlessly from the carpark to the pool deck. Poor coverage or slow speeds can quickly translate into frustration, negative feedback and lost repeat business.

Conversely, dependable connectivity enables properties to promote in-room entertainment, contactless check-in and personalised offers, opening new revenue opportunities while reducing pressure on front-of-house teams.

Yet delivering that experience across an entire hotel, resort or caravan park is far from simple. Many properties were built long before wireless connectivity was even imagined, leaving operators to retrofit networks into existing structures, sprawling outdoor areas and high-interference environments. As guest usage patterns evolve, particularly with the rise of streaming and video conferencing, the challenge has moved beyond raw speed to questions of capacity, security and intelligent bandwidth management.

To explore how accommodation providers can meet these demands, AccomNews spoke with David Plummer, Regional Director ANZ, RUCKUS Networks, about the common pitfalls he sees in hospitality wifi deployments and the practical steps operators can take to deliver a consistent, guest-first experience across every corner of a property.

Why does delivering consistent, high-speed wifi across an entire property—including outdoor and transitional spaces—remain a challenge for accommodation providers, and what common mistakes do you see operators making?

Delivering consistent wifi across an entire property remains challenging largely because many accommodation environments were not originally designed with pervasive connectivity in mind. Outdoor areas, transitional spaces such as corridors and lifts, and shared amenities are often added or upgraded over time, creating uneven coverage and performance gaps. These spaces also introduce complex RF conditions that behave very differently from guest rooms.

A common mistake is treating wifi as a one-off deployment rather than an evolving system. Many operators rely on legacy designs, insufficient density, or infrastructure not suited to outdoor or high-interference environments. Just as importantly, networks are often planned around static floor plans rather than how guests actually move through a property, leading to inconsistent experiences as users transition between spaces.

Across hospitality environments, the properties that perform best revisit network design regularly as part of broader refurbishment or service upgrades. They validate performance in transitional and outdoor spaces during peak usage—not just at commissioning—and treat connectivity as an operational asset that evolves alongside the guest experience.

As guest expectations and device numbers continue to rise, how are high-density environments changing the way accommodation operators need to think about network infrastructure?

High-density usage has become the norm rather than the exception. Guests routinely travel with multiple devices and expect seamless connectivity for work, entertainment and communication, often all at once. In high-occupancy environments, this places sustained pressure on networks that were historically designed for lighter, intermittent use.

As a result, accommodation providers need to think beyond headline speeds and focus instead on capacity, interference management and how the network behaves when hundreds or thousands of users are connected simultaneously. Visibility into usage patterns and the ability to manage performance dynamically during peak periods are now essential to maintaining a consistent guest experience.

Operators are increasingly encouraged to design networks for “worst normal days” rather than rare edge cases. Planning around predictable peak scenarios—such as full occupancy, events and evening streaming—delivers more reliable outcomes than over-engineering for theoretical maximums that rarely reflect real guest behaviour.

With growing concerns around data privacy, how can accommodation providers balance ease of guest access with security?

Guests expect wifi access to be fast and frictionless, but this does not remove the need for strong security behind the scenes. Accommodation providers must support large volumes of transient users while protecting sensitive operational systems and staff networks from exposure.

The most effective approaches focus on clear separation between guest, staff and operational traffic, supported by consistent policies across the property. Minimising the amount of personal data required for access and embedding security into the network architecture allows providers to protect users without complicating the guest experience.

Experience across properties adopting mobile check-in, digital room access and connected building systems shows that security failures often stem from inconsistent policy enforcement across sites. Operators that standardise access policies property-wide, rather than managing them manually, are far better positioned to maintain security as services and guest volumes scale.

How is the growth of streaming, casting and app-based in-room entertainment reshaping bandwidth management strategies in hotels and resorts, particularly during peak occupancy periods?

Streaming and casting have shifted in-room entertainment from occasional usage to sustained, high-bandwidth demand. During peak occupancy—particularly in the evenings—simultaneous streaming across hundreds of rooms can place significant strain on networks not designed for continuous load.

This shift has made intelligent bandwidth management increasingly important. Accommodation providers need to ensure fair access across guests, prioritise critical services and prevent individual users or devices from degrading performance for others, especially during high-demand periods.

Across hospitality environments, evening usage patterns are remarkably consistent. Operators who align bandwidth policies to these predictable rhythms experience fewer performance issues and reduce the need for manual intervention during peak hours.

Reliable connectivity has become a baseline expectation for guests, influencing satisfaction, reviews and loyalty even when it operates quietly in the background. As accommodation providers continue to digitise services and expand guest experiences beyond the room, wifi is increasingly foundational to how properties operate and compete.

As a final observation, connectivity strategies are most successful when aligned with long-term operational goals rather than short-term fixes. Properties that treat wifi as core infrastructure are better equipped to meet rising expectations without increasing complexity for on-site teams.

Read more: In-room technology trends in 2025: Enhancing the guest experience & operational efficiency