Abstract
With internet connectivity becoming an important enabler to knowledge sharing, information access and communication, free Wi-Fi offerings are becoming more prevalent not only in a business context, but also in a leisure context. When looking at the tourism industry in particular, airports are often the point of embarkation and debarkation for very many data hungry travellers that are operating outside of their service provider’s jurisdiction. In both the case of the business and leisure traveller, free Wi-Fi offerings have become crucial to ensuring their further mobility. As a result, this research analyses the approaches taken by a selection of international airports spanning Africa, Europe, the Middle East and North America in delivering free Wi-Fi on their premises. The typical approaches taken in order to monetize this high frequency, high demand service are subsequently identified, also noting whether end user Personally Identifiable Information (PII) is collected in the process. Initial findings from the selection of 25 airports from 15 countries indicate that advertising based revenue models, premium (upgraded at a cost) internet service business models, as well as sponsor/third party internet service provision business models are most popular when it comes to airport Wi-Fi service delivery and monetisation. Overall, unique user identification (by means of collecting PII) to make use of these free Wi-Fi services at airports is required by 9 out of 25 (36%) airports, indicating that while Wi-Fi is still regarded as a high-value resource in certain jurisdictions (most notably in South Africa), liberalisation of access is becoming a global reality. The results of this study may be used not only by other airports, but also other high frequency tourist destinations, innovation hubs, entrepreneurial co-working spaces etc., who wish to introduce their own free Wi-Fi services or to diversify their existing revenue streams.