At my hotel in the Swiss Alps, I came home from dinner, jet-lagged and a little tipsy, to find that a television inside the bathroom mirror had been turned on during turndown service. I pressed all the buttons on the wall panel, then tried the switches on a control box next to the bed. Nothing worked.
Since I couldn’t find anything resembling a phone in the room (don’t forget I was a bit drunk), I sped down the hall and came back with a receptionist to turn off my “smart mirror”. Twenty minutes later, already in my pajamas, I had to face a new problem: no switch, no button turned off the lights in the bathroom. I closed the door, put a mask on my eyes and managed.
Now I have to get used to the abundance of smart technology in hotel rooms. Voice-activated lights. Concierges with chatbot. QR codes on televisions. Registration by browser or mobile application. Texting the valet for my car. Don’t even get me started on the motorized curtains – trying to see the ocean in Miami was as difficult as tackling William Faulkner. All of this is infuriating. And overwhelming.
A recent study by the specialist magazine Hospitality Technology and William F. Harrah College of Hospitality at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas surveyed 100 hoteliers and found that industry-wide adoption of self-service features such as check-in kiosks and mobile room keys is growing.
Proponents of the initiative say these investments have many benefits for guests, whether it’s personalizing the hotel experience, anticipating guest needs, reducing friction points or freeing up staff.
Neha Jaitpal, global general manager of Building Technologies at Honeywell, oversees “intuitive” solutions for more than two million hotel rooms worldwide, working for companies such as Accor and Fairmont Hotels & Resorts. “Imagine arriving in your hotel room after a long day of travel and it’s already set to your preferences, whether it’s temperature, lighting or even the position of the curtains,” she explains.
Thanks to automation, hotel rooms can be personalized without the need for human interaction.
Neha Jaitpal, Global General Manager of Building Technologies at Honeywell
“Smart hotel rooms mean empowerment,” said Robert Firpo-Cappiello, editor-in-chief of Hospitality Technology. “Contactless interactions have been a lifeline for hotels during the pandemic. People are used to it now. There is no going back. »
Yes, some (young) travelers I spoke to love it.
“At the Wynn Hotel, I liked that Alexa closed the blinds, turned off the lights and played music,” said Eddie Burns, 25, traveling drummer and musician. I arrived super late and it was great to manage everything from bed. »
A system that wastes mental energy
But please can we go back? These “guest enhancements,” touted as much in demand by hoteliers and the tech companies that make them, aren’t for me. They were, in fact, obstacles – between me and sleep, me and the view I had paid for, me and firm pillows (in Miami, this request was not an option on the tablet, and no human answered the phone at housekeeping). What was once simple is now ridiculously complicated.
“I used to walk into a hotel room and relax. Now it’s a lot of work figuring out how to use the lights and turn off the television, which, of course, is tuned to the hotel’s promotional station,” said Jill Weinberg, 67, regional director of the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum and, like me, a frustrated hotel guest. “Here’s a whole new system that I have to waste mental energy on every time I travel. »
Another problem with “personalized” hotel rooms? They are impersonal. Frictionless functionality does not create character or soul; people do it. I enjoy being greeted by the front desk, chatting with the concierge about restaurant ideas, and chatting with the other staff who more often than not have great local tips. I don’t care if a room “knows” that I like pilates and the thermostat is set to 20 degrees. And I’m not going to download an app just to ask for towels. Can’t I just ask the maintenance department?
Other travelers want it too.
Stephanie Fisher, an advisor to luxury travel agency Local Foreigner, said many of her clients “demand hotels with personalized service that prioritize guest relationships.”
The best memories come from connecting with people, not devices.
Stephanie Fisher, Advisor
Luckily for me and many other guests, not all hotels see technology as the silver bullet of the future. Some, like the Graduate Hotels, a chain of boutique hotels in college towns like Ann Arbor, Michigan, and Nashville, Tennessee, are — with the exception of Wi-Fi and a few smart TVs — deliberately analog.
“We are attached to nostalgia, to the notion of transporting customers to a simpler time, which is why we never wanted to use a remote control, explains Ben Weprin, founder of Graduate Hotels. We want guests to immerse themselves in the university community and then return to their room to decompress. Our motto is: get out of the metaverse and into the universe. »
In Europe, the only technology offered in the rooms of Rocco Forte hotels is high-speed internet. That’s not to say the technology is ignored: doormen use a headset to communicate a customer’s name to reception so they receive a personalized welcome when they check in, and back-end systems store preferences so room staff can “remember” a customer’s morning specialty coffee order. It’s not state of the art. That’s the main thing.
And that suits me perfectly. While the idea of human-centric lighting suited to my circadian rhythm is noble, please just give me a switch. Maybe also a good old landline with a human on the other end. I’ll be better than fine. I will be a happier and more relaxed guest.
This article was originally published in The New York Times.