Home on the road: catering to the needs of business travelers.

• Author: Swift, Shelley
• Position: Business Travel

BUSINESS TRAVELERS ARE often found checking email or surfing online in the lobby and restaurant at the Holiday Inn Select City Centre in Lafayette, where wireless Internet access is free in public areas. Wired high-speed Internet access comes complimentary in each of the hotel's 142 guest rooms.

It's a sign of the times in the hotel industry, where high-speed and wireless Internet access is becoming as commonplace as a Bible in the nightstand drawer.

Easy Web access seems to be the top request of frequent business travelers, but the list of amenities for the corporate crowd runs long, ranging from ergonomic desk chairs to extra-spacious showers.

Hotels are racing to equip their establishments with everything today's business traveler wants and needs.

More than "mints on the pillow." "When you talk about amenities, in the old days that may have been water in the room, mints on the pillow, and so on," says Glenn Brooks, vice president of sales and marketing for General Hotels Corp., which ovals and manages 10 Indiana hotels. "These days we're talking about a much bigger amenities package, with larger initiatives that cover the guests' needs of today."

Like many hotels, the Fort Wayne Hilton at the Grand Wayne Center provides guests the convenience of a dally newspaper and an ATM in the lobby. Hilton Hhonors members also get free breakfast in the morning and a free drink at night.

For upcoming renovations at University Place Conference Center and Hotel in Indianapolis, executives are discussing enhancing everything from the shower curtain rods to the soap and shampoo.

At the Residence Inn Northwest in Indianapolis, an extended-stay facility, guests are invited to an outdoor barbecue once a week, and an evening social hour every night. All guests also enjoy pillow-top mattresses and complimentary hot and cold breakfast selections.

"As competition has gotten tougher, you keep adding on and improving" your amenities, says Jeffrey Brown, vice president of Schahet Hotels, which runs the Residence inn Northwest and five other Indianapolis hotels.

Eric Murphy, vice president of sales and marketing for Murphy/Reader Associates, which owns and operates two Indiana hotels, says his company develops hotels with the business traveler in mind. One of them, Lafayette's newly constructed Holiday Inn Select, opened in December 2002

"Because we're a brandnew hotel, we've been able to take the benefit of all the emerging trends and put them into action," says...