Fairmont hotels: Is technology delivering greater personalization or making hospitality impersonal?

To begin, I would say that on the one hand, technology makes the hospitality impersonal. Indeed, I think that in a way, going to a hotel is a relationship experience from a guest's point of view; you deal with a lot of staff persons, you meet people, it is a kind of human experience. If you replace the check-in experience and put instead self-service kioks, you get rid of this human experience. However, it is still an innovatice experience. But as my own experience, I've noticed that sometimes guests of luxurious, up-scale hotels, are used to always be guided; some don't know how to do things by themselves. Therefore it could be disadvantaging according this "type" of guests, even with a service agent on hand.

But, on the other hand, we can see technology as delivering greater personalization in the fact that guests can check in and out rapidly, chose a room that they like and receive their room key in only few clicks. This is a truly new experience for guests: they will have a greater control for their choices.

Finally, I would end by saying that in my opinion, technology helps a lot in delivering guests personalization but it has to be "behind the scene" like shown in this article about spas' resorts and hotels that use technology for remembering their guests and their treatment preferences. Technology should stay a tool for the staff and management in business but not for replacing people and the human experience.