Making the business case: How to justify WiFi infrastructure investment to hotel owners

Translating operational impact into language that resonates with ownership and finance teams.

A hotel IT director asked me last week: "How do I justify WiFi infrastructure investment to owners who only see costs, not guest satisfaction scores?"

It's the right question, and one we're hearing more frequently as properties balance capital constraints with rising guest expectations. The challenge isn't the technology itself; it's translating operational impact into language that resonates with ownership and finance teams.

The WiFi conversation has changed

Five years ago, WiFi was a hygiene factor. Guests expected it to work but rarely made booking decisions based on connection quality. Today, the equation has shifted dramatically.

Remote workers choosing extended stays, business travellers running video calls from their rooms, and leisure guests streaming content across multiple devices have fundamentally changed what "adequate WiFi" means.

There has been a 38% increase in bandwidth usage per room year-on-year. Infrastructure planned two years ago is already inadequate for today's demand, let alone next summer's peak season.

Yet when IT teams present upgrade proposals, the response from ownership is often the same: "WiFi already works. Why spend £50,000 upgrading it?"

The answer lies not in technical specifications, but in business outcomes.

The four-pillar business case framework

After supporting dozens of hotels through infrastructure investment conversations, we've developed a framework that consistently resonates with ownership teams. It focuses on four measurable business impacts:

1. Revenue protection

Calculate the cost of WiFi-related negative reviews. A single one-star TripAdvisor review citing "terrible WiFi" can cost hundreds of bookings. Multiply your average room rate by conservative estimates of bookings lost to connectivity complaints.

For a 100-room property averaging £150 per night, losing just five bookings per month to WiFi concerns equals £90,000 annually, nearly double the infrastructure investment.

This isn't hypothetical. We analysed review data from 50 independent UK hotels and found that properties with 3+ WiFi complaints in reviews experienced measurable booking declines in subsequent months.

2. Revenue enhancement

Reliable connectivity enables revenue-driving use cases. Meeting rooms with robust WiFi command premium rates. Extended-stay business travellers who can work productively from their rooms book longer stays at higher ADR.

Properties targeting the "bleisure" market cannot compete without infrastructure supporting both leisure and work requirements.

Quantify this: if upgraded WiFi allows you to successfully target business travellers for weekend stays, what's the revenue impact of a 10% occupancy lift on Sundays? For most hotels, that single metric justifies the investment.

3. Operational Efficiency

Poor WiFi doesn't just frustrate guests; it creates operational drag. Reception teams spend hours troubleshooting connectivity issues that shouldn't exist. Engineering is pulled from preventive maintenance to reset routers. Guest service scores suffer when staff can't resolve problems quickly.

Calculate the labour cost: if your front desk team spends 30 minutes daily on WiFi issues, that's 182 hours annually, worth thousands in lost productivity. More importantly, it's time not spent on guest service that actually drives satisfaction and loyalty.

4. Future-proofing

Today's investment needs to support tomorrow's requirements. Upgraded infrastructure enables emerging technologies, from IoT room controls to digital concierge services to contactless check-in systems that increasingly expect robust connectivity.

More importantly, it avoids the much more expensive emergency upgrade when the current system fails during peak season.

Frame this as insurance: spending £50,000 now avoids spending £80,000 in 18 months under crisis conditions with rushed procurement and installation disruption during high occupancy. "The conversation isn't 'We need new routers,' it's 'Our current infrastructure puts £90,000 in annual revenue at risk.'"

The language that resonates

When presenting to ownership, avoid technical jargon. Don't talk about access point density, mesh topology, or bandwidth allocation.

Instead, speak about guest experience protection, competitive positioning, and revenue risk.

What ownership wants to hear

Not: "We need to upgrade to WiFi 6E with increased AP density to support modern device bandwidth requirements."

Instead: "Our current WiFi infrastructure puts us at competitive disadvantage. Guests are choosing properties with better connectivity, and it's costing us £7,500 per month in lost bookings based on review sentiment analysis. A £50,000 investment protects that revenue and positions us for extended-stay and bleisure segments we're currently losing."

Real-World Example

75-room independent hotel, Central London

Challenge: Six-year-old WiFi infrastructure generating weekly complaints. System incapable of supporting multiple devices per room. Reception spending 45 minutes daily on connectivity troubleshooting.

Business case presented:

1. WiFi mentioned in 8% of negative reviews
2. Estimated 12 lost bookings monthly (conservative calculation)
3. Revenue risk: £20,000 annually at £140 average rate
4. Labour cost: 273 hours annually on troubleshooting = £4,100 at blended rate
5. Total annual cost of poor WiFi: £24,100
6. Infrastructure upgrade cost: £45,000
7. Payback period: 22 months

Result: Ownership approved immediately when framed as revenue protection rather than technical upgrade. Three months post-installation, WiFi complaints dropped to zero, and the property successfully repositioned to target extended-stay business travellers, adding a new revenue stream worth £15,000 annually.

Implementation considerations

Once the business case is approved, implementation quality matters enormously. The best technology poorly installed delivers worse results than adequate technology installed properly.

Key success factors

1. Site survey first: Never skip the professional site survey. Every building has unique RF characteristics. What works in one hotel won't necessarily work in another with different construction materials, room configurations, and interference sources.
2. Guest and business network separation: Ensure guest WiFi is completely separated from your business network. This isn't just security best practice—it prevents guest usage from impacting PMS, payment systems, and back-office operations.
3. Capacity planning for peak: Design for your highest occupancy periods, not average usage. Systems that perform adequately at 60% occupancy often collapse at 95% occupancy when you can least afford connectivity problems.
4. Ongoing monitoring: Implement systems that proactively alert you to performance degradation before guests complain. The best infrastructure in the world requires active management.

The broader context

WiFi infrastructure sits at the intersection of multiple industry trends. Guest expectations continue rising while properties face pressure to control capital expenditure. The hotels that successfully navigate this tension are those that frame technology investment in business terms ownership understands.

This same framework applies to other infrastructure decisions: telephony migration for the PSTN switch-off, cyber security improvements, PMS upgrades. The technology changes, but the business case structure remains consistent: quantify revenue protection, identify revenue enhancement opportunities, calculate operational efficiency gains, and demonstrate future-proofing value.

“Technology should serve your operation, not the other way round.”

Moving forward

If you're preparing a WiFi infrastructure business case, start by gathering data. Review your complaints and reviews for connectivity mentions. Calculate time your team spends on WiFi troubleshooting.

Benchmark your current bandwidth provision against industry standards for your property type.

Then translate those operational realities into financial impact. Ownership teams make dozens of investment decisions annually. Your job is to make WiFi infrastructure one they can evaluate using the same business metrics they apply to every other capital allocation.

The properties that do this successfully aren't just getting better WiFi—they're positioning technology as a strategic enabler rather than a cost centre. That mindset shift changes how every future technology conversation unfolds.

Author

Alessandra Leoni, Focus on Hospitality
Helping hotels embrace innovation with empathy, purpose, and confidence.

Alessandra Leoni is Head of Hospitality at Focus Group, leading the Focus on Hospitality division. With over 30 years of hospitality experience including roles as General Manager and commercial leadership positions, Alessandra brings genuine operational understanding to technology strategy. Focus on Hospitality supports 300+ hotels across the UK with technology solutions including WiFi infrastructure, cyber security, telephony, and managed IT services.

Contact: [email protected]