Navigating the Evolution of Hospitality Technology: Balancing Innovation & Genuine Connection

The difference between a customer and a guest is that customers are merely parties to a transaction while guests are people with whom we engage on a personal level.

It's the warm, personal and engaging experience we, as hospitality professionals, deliver that separates our industry from all other transaction-based retail and yet many managers and guests alike have become victims of a hospitality culture born out of a mad rush to automate, mechanize, and digitize the most basic and fundamental elements of hospitality: recognizing a guest, greeting a guest, making a guest feel welcomed and personally thanking a guest.

While technology has become an integral part of the hospitality industry, I have a growing concern that tech is steering the focus away from genuine connections as if they were a source of the friction and inefficiency guests are often forced to endure.

At Paire Appetit, we recognize the pivotal role of technology in hospitality. However, we pride ourselves on being more of a "guest service technology" company, to emphasize the fact that we’re a guest-focused team leveraging technology rather than the other way around. As providers of hospitality, It’s crucial for us to remember that technology should enhance, not replace, the warm and personal touches that define true hospitality.

Don’t be distracted by the myriad of technological services and plug-ins created to save you steps - when the steps are what bring you closer to your guests.

The lack of personalization in hotels run by organizations that are touted as having mastered it as a classic yet sad case of being utterly situationally tone deaf. Let’s get back to the basics of doing what we, as hospitalitarians do best: Making people happy and building systems around that priority. As a friend and mentor Kelley Jones used to say: “Smiles and profits have a direct correlation”. Don’t be distracted by the myriad of technological services and plug-ins created to save you steps - when the steps are what bring you closer to your guests.

In the immortal words of Carl W. Buehner (often attributed to Maya Angelou): “People may forget what you said or did but they will never forget how you made them feel.”

Imagine for a moment - inviting a guest to your home for the weekend and opening the garage door for them remotely via the MyQ app on your phone instead of greeting them personally, stocking up the more popular Diet Coke instead of the Diet Pepsi they prefer, asking them to buck up and chip in to help pay for your high speed internet and suggesting that they tip your housekeeper (whom they've never even met and most likely never will). Now imagine them paying you for your hospitality and, in an effort to convey your sincere gratitude - you finish "strong" with the sort of lasting impression only a generic Thank You e-card can deliver. You wouldn’t you consider yourself a warm, personal, and engaging hostess or host would you? And yet that’s pretty emblematic of the experience many hotels provide. And I fear too many cool brands, beautiful properties, and emotionally co-dependent humans will be lost in the wake of modernizing for the sake of modernizing.

The gradual erosion of guest-centered service seems less to due with regulations or increased pressure to produce cost-cutting measures than it does from imprudent reactions to a rapid increase of costs and a fear of losing market share to perceived competitors (e.g., tech-driven OTAs & home-sharing apps that appeal to a different segment of the market). Whatever the reason, the rush to differentiate, stay relevant and remain profitable has resulted in an obsession to collect and leverage data to upsell the guest or to replace people with ipads in order to streamline operations and increase efficiency. Don’t get me wrong…cost cutting measures and streamlining ops are great - as long as they don’t overshadow the fundamental purpose of providing additional value to the guest.

"A lot of people build software or whatever tech they want to deliver into our market and think it's a great idea but they don't necessarily spend a lot of time getting to know the customer or asking the consumers if it makes sense because it's more about the product or service or delivery method...the real question is does the consumer really benefit or is it just another way for a hotel to make more money?" - Alan Young of Puzzle Partner.co

As a guest I often feel glorified, objectified and ignored all at once…even in some of the most celebrated hotels.  From receiving generic communications (despite the wealth of data collected on me over the years) and being directed to a self-service kiosk to enter in data myself to asking me to complete pre-arrival questionnaires and earning loyalty points whose redemption value is inevitably impacted by “shrinkflation”.

There are plenty of common practices like these that expose a serious disconnect between rhetoric and practice when it comes to personalization.

Lately, I’ve been seeing more and more examples of redundancy, complexity, and indiscriminate measuring while losing sight of the guests' most basic needs. For example: In an industry saturated with executives holding lofty titles and accolades rife with prose like: “change agents revolutionizing the guest experience” or “thought leaders disrupting the industry by reimagining hospitality”… “at the intersection of community + sustainability”….it’s disheartening to witness them prioritizing novelty, profit and efficiency over genuine guest-facing approaches to hospitality. For example, how many hotels do you see strategically placing a mini fridge at the perfect height for a guest to access while on their knees? Or touting cold unfinished walls with exposed rebar and concrete floors as “refreshingly raw”, “extremely novel” and “brutalist”? Or the lack of a hook (or ceiling mounted towel bar) in the bathroom so that you the steam from your shower can be recycled to take the wrinkles out of a shirt or dress that just spent 3 hours in a suitcase. There are plenty of common practices like these that expose a serious disconnect between rhetoric and practice when it comes to personalization.

When Hotels spend more effort, energy, and money collecting data about me than they do personalizing my stay - they drift further away from a traditional hospitality-based business and deeper into the waters of a more transaction-based industry: i.e., real estate. It's essential to remember that every time a design, policy, procedure or tech stack is woven into the fabric of hospitality, it should serve to strengthen and bind that fabric with meaningful purpose. My friend and trusted advisor, Jacqueline Nunley of Salesforce often offers her sage counsel to execs looking to the integrate technology within the lodging and travel sectors: "Just because you can, doesn't mean you should”. It’s a poignant reminder for hospitality executives to adopt the right technologies and policies more thoughtfully. 

As guest preferences evolve, the focus should shift from collecting data for a company’s own internal use to providing guests with data in order to better accommodate them - that’s the sort of guest-first mindset that fosters lasting relationships and a loyal customer base. 

If you feel yourself drifting off course, look to the wisdom of Augustus Escoffier, who invented the Back of House brigade system and popularized personal dining via a la carte service - as your true north. When asked what it takes to be successful in the restaurant business, he replied: “Success in hospitality lies in simple yet profound principles: See me, smile at me, talk to me, and thank me.".

This timeless perspective emphasizes the value in providing personal human connections with a sense of gratitude and appreciation for the human condition. After all, this is what got most of us into hospitality in the first place. An emotional co-dependency that manifests itself as an ongoing investment in humanity.

the most reliable information comes from directly asking guests thoughtful questions, listening to their answers and acting on them.

The industry's relentless pursuit of collecting and understanding guest preferences often causes them to overlook the most valuable resource of all: the guests themselves. While interpreting non-verbal cues and leveraging data can be insightful, the most reliable information comes from directly asking guests thoughtful questions, listening to their answers and acting on them. Paire's approach to deep personalization does just that: We engage restaurant guests through fun quizzes and private ratings, analyze the information they supply and then return it as actionable data they can use to enhance their own dining experiences…and we’re preparing to do the same thing in the lodging vertical.

Let's all make a more intentional effort to navigate the rising tide of hospitality technology with a more balanced approach. Embrace innovation but never lose sight of the foundational principles that define true hospitality — genuine connections, personalized experiences and a commitment to making guests feel seen, heard and appreciated.