I can’t remember just how many times I have heard hotel
managers looking at in-room technology saying “but will my grandmother be able
to use it?’, or “it needs to be simple, our guests are not tech savvy.”
Let me just say upfront that these are absolutely valid
comments and the many stories on Tripadvisor and elsewhere of in-room
technology not working proves that there is definitely danger in over-reliance
on technology, let alone technology that is badly executed. But not all
technology is bad technology and sometimes the brush gets applied a little too
broadly, so it is worth investigating this further.
If, for example, your hotel is in a country where power
outages are common (think India and Thailand for example) it is probably not a
good idea to rely heavily on centrally controlled curtains, air-conditioning
and lighting (generators not withstanding), lest guests get trapped in the
dark.
But even in countries where continuous power is assured,
technology can turn a hotel stay into a nightmare. Most often this happens when
it is badly executed or simply doesn’t work, which is wholly unnecessary and
risks giving technology as a whole a bad name.
But even when it works well, technology has the capacity to
annoy and delight in equal measures, depending on what type of person you are.
And that’s the problem: guest rooms today have to bridge an ever increasing
generational gap which makes choosing what type and the level of technology a
challenge. The challenge is though that it’s no longer just about thinking of
guests being positioned somewhere between early adopters or laggards – the differences
are much more profound.
New generations live IN technology, not just WITH it
Between those of us who were born in the 1950s or 60s and
those born in the 1980s is a cultural canyon as wide as the Pacific. As French
philosopher Michel Serres puts it succinctly (and as retold by Christopher
Caldwell in the FT here),
young people “walk among the living ruins of a culture that makes little sense
to them”, with libraries, newspapers, DVDs and even hand writing rapidly losing
their footing as common cultural denominators. And while older generations
don’t completely forsake technology, they merely live with this technology, while the new one lives in it, which is a significant
difference. Serres calls the new generation “Thumbelinas” for their
thumb-driven communication habits, which I guess makes us older folks
“Indexers” for we still remember using index fingers to dial the old rotary
phone, the main communication vehicle of yore.
But think what you may about the information revolution
(Serres, for one, thinks it’s about as significant as the invention of the
Gutenberg Press), the fact is it is something that cannot be reversed and it
should not be ignored by hotels or they may risk alienating their future
guests. So how to make it right for all? It’s a true dilemma for hotels and
does not just affect technology – although I would argue it is here that the
divide is most pronounced.
One way this can be dealt with is a dual approach, where old
and new sit side by side. Don’t completely remove the printed in-room dining
menu. But don’t decide not to introduce an interactive in-room dining menu on
your TV because you are afraid it may alienate the ‘less tech-savvy travelers’.
Have both and let the guest decide what he or she prefers and then gradually
phase out the paper version when you think the time is right.
Technology needs to
make sense
However, I don’t believe that in-room technology should be
there for the sake of it - it needs to reflect real life and/or address a need.
Just as a few years ago flat screen TV adoption in the home forced hotels to
replace their old CRT sets, we again need to look at where technology has moved
to in the living room to get a cue on what guests may want in the future.
Mobility and BYOD is one of those technologies that are here to stay, so screen
mirroring is a big one that hotels should embrace sooner rather than later.
Fundamentally though, technology also needs to make sense.
My washing machine does not have an in-built microwave, neither does my fridge,
so why Skype should be included in an in-room entertainment system defies me.
In my view, the only time Skype on the big screen makes sense is when you
gather the family to have a reunion chat of sorts, which is a scenario that I
would think doesn’t happen too often in a hotel room. The fundamental question
every hotel should ask is before embarking on any technology upgrade is “would
guests use this?”
