By: MarkJ - 30 December, 2009 (8:29 AM) - Score: 7419 - Fixed Line Broadband, Wi-Fi

Scottish Labour's Economy and Skills spokesman, John Park (MSP for Mid Scotland and Fife), has called on the Scottish Tourist Board (Visit Scotland) and the British Hospitality Association (BHA) to include Internet access as a factor in hotel star ratings. Park has called for all of Scotland's hotels to offer FREE broadband access.


It's an attractive proposition, especially since most hotels often charge extra for Internet access and thus it sometimes ends up being cheaper to take your own pay-as-you-go Mobile Broadband modem with you instead (in the UK at least).

Still, it’s not always cheap to install internet access in every room; even Wi-Fi requires a more extensive setup to make the signal reliably reach every room and is often delivered through solutions provided by third party organisations, such as The Cloud and BT Openzone.

Going FREE may be difficult but Internet access should certainly be a part of the star rating criteria. Of course one could argue that there is no such thing as "free" in a hotel, everything you get is covered by the price you pay.