Hotels and the travelers who frequent them bear little resemblance to their counterparts from just a few years ago. The explosion of new technologies has allowed hotels to change the way they operate and has made the average traveler more tech-savvy and connected than ever.

Mobile devices are driving this innovation. Not only have mobile devices changed how people interact with each other, they also have changed how people expect businesses to engage with them. According to SmartBrief, 40 percent of hotel guests carry three or more mobile devices. And with global mobile data traffic growing 30 percent every year according to Cisco, there will be an estimated 4.9 billion mobile users by 2018. When these mobile users travel, will they choose your hotel? Only if you have the mobile amenities they demand.

Travelers – especially business travelers and Millennials – don’t want to wait. They don’t want to wait for their room to be ready upon check-in, and they certainly don’t want to wait for slow Internet connectivity when they’re trying to get work done in the lobby, attending a web meeting in their hotel room, or even streaming movies, music or TV shows. They expect free access to high-speed Internet and the ability to connect through multiple devices no matter where they are on the property. Hoteliers, therefore, need strategies to accommodate guests’ technology needs in order to attract and engage this highly mobile, “connected” traveler.

Mobile technologies help hotels enhance customer service and better utilize hotel resources. They enhance the in-room entertainment experience, allow travelers to access outside networks and the cloud, and help to streamline the guest check-in/check-out process, among other benefits. Many guests will not return to a hotel where there is slow or unreliable Wi-Fi. For this reason and more, it is imperative for hotels to choose high-performance data solutions that serve as the backbone for a robust, reliable Wi-Fi network.