Of Thumbelinas and Indexers and what it means for technology in hotel rooms

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?”