Executive Travel : Device Helps Travelers With Laptops Handle Printing Needs

The laptop computer, as essential for today’s business traveler as a briefcase was for yesterday’s, is about to become even more versatile.

A Youngstown, Ohio, company called the Printer Port Inc. has started to market stand-alone printing stations designed for hotel lobbies, airports and other heavily used areas that allow the traveler to print out documents, letters and other material stored in a laptop.

The printing stations fill a gap, according to Tom Sullivan, president of the company.

Not everyone packs a portable printer. Conference or business centers in large hotels with printing facilities are not always open around the clock. Even with fax modem capabilities to send material back to the office, there is often a need to transfer documents to paper immediately either for mailing or presentation at a meeting.

The Printer Port allows the user to insert letterhead stationery if desired, and will also address envelopes.

The cost is $1 per minute, or about 25 cents a page. It’s up to the hotel or other location leasing the printing stations to keep the paper tray full, but otherwise the devices are low-maintenance, Sullivan said.

The printers are currently stationed in about 25 locations, mostly hotels in the East, Sullivan said. But negotiations are under way with at least one airline, he said, and, in the near future, as many as 500 printing stations could be in place.

The product is not designed to replace the business centers found in many large hotels, but for smaller properties, Sullivan said. Even some larger hotels, he said, have been impressed after comparing the cost of setting aside a room for business processing with using a printer station.

Billing for use of the printing stations is handled by a card that is inserted at the start and withdrawn when the job is done. The card records the amount of time used.

In a hotel, for instance, the traveler can have the charge added to his or her room bill, or pay for it separately with cash or a credit card.

The printers are designed to work with laptops using Windows programs, but not exclusively, Sullivan said. They are incompatible with Macintosh-based laptops, he said, because studies indicated those systems are a smaller percentage of the laptop market.

Sullivan said usage has been steadily increasing month-by-month at present printer locations, with the average traveler spending from $7 to $10 in printing fees.

A poll by Frequent Flyer Magazine found that 95% of respondents traveled with a portable computer of some sort, nearly 63% of which was DOS-Windows equipment.