Connectivity blues ground business travellers

Business travellers are finding it more of a headache to get online than a year ago, according to research conducted by silicon.com.

Despite the seemingly unstoppable rise of wi-fi hotspots in coffee shops, airports, metropolitan areas and even on-board trains, the annual silicon.com Business Traveller Survey found the number of travellers who "sometimes" have difficulty getting online while on the road has increased by seven percentage points - standing at 67 per cent, up from 60 per cent last year.

And worryingly this seems to be costing people business. Twenty per cent of respondents said they believe they have lost business as a result of not being able to get online while on the move. This is up from 18 per cent last year.

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The proportion of survey respondents who said they "rarely" have difficulties connecting to the net when at large fell from 23 per cent to 17 per cent, while those who do not have any problems getting online dropped from five per cent to just three per cent.

Business travellers who said they "always" have trouble connecting on the road remained unchanged, at 13 per cent.

Regular globetrotter and silicon.com columnist, Peter Cochrane, puts the blame for increased connectivity difficulties squarely on the policies of corporate IT departments. He told silicon.com: "The villains of the piece here are the company IT and security departments who are making it increasingly difficult to work on the move."

He added: "Those without an IT and security department are actually finding it easier!"

The survey also found that when it comes to getting online, business travellers are most likely to trust the advice of a fellow passenger.

In answer to the question 'who would you trust for advice on connectivity while travelling?', the most popular response - selected by 60 per cent of those taking the survey - was 'other travellers who know the location from where I am trying to connect', an increase of 10 percentage points on last year. Twenty-two per cent also put their faith in 'other travellers generally'.

After fellow travellers, road warriors place most store on the advice of cellular or hotspot service providers (53 per cent), followed by location owners such as hotels and cafés (35 per cent), and airline/airport or rail network/operators (30 per cent).

A spokesman for travel community website TripAdvisor said: "Word-of-mouth has always been one of the most powerful influencers in any purchasing decision".

The 2007 Business Traveller Survey was completed by 615 silicon.com readers, 82 per cent of whom where based in the UK.