Dear hotel GM,
I'm addressing a formal request to you to reconsider the meaning of 'digitalisation'.
Digitalisation should, primarily, stand for simplification.
Simplification is a nice, gentle word. It gives us the idea to make our life easier.
And, as a result, your business is successful.
Should you turn this easy concept upside down, should you assume that yout primary target is the optimising of your company's profit,
without remembering that your target is to keep your Clients happy, loyal, I would also add the most powerful booster of our revenues, YOU will pay a huge price,
The market will react as the main characters in the George Orwell famous book 'Animals Farm'.
Please, dear hotel GM, do not destroy your business with CHECK IN ON-LINE!
We do not accept it. Hotels are not airlines. We, Your Clients, are not passive beneficiary of your services. Don't you agree?
A human contact with a good front desk-receptionist is as much (and more) important than any kind of marketing strategy and brings huge money back.
Much more than all 'labour cost savings' generated by AI, softwares and useless technology tools.
Dear hotel GM,
the front office is the uniform of your hotel. The image, the brand identity. You can wear an elegant, appropriate suit and sit down at any table,
or insulting your Guests with embarrassing acting of getting your job done by them.
Is it so difficult to catch it?
We, Your Clients, have been trying and teaching you that the first 30 seconds of interaction when we introduce ourselves and kindly ask to pay
you as much as we can are essential for your business.
We are ready to upgrade, to move from B/B to HB or FB, to pay all kinds of extra services you might market us. But, we are also ready to complain,
eventually to move to another hotel. And to spread the voice of our un-satisfaction right?
Please do not force us to react, It was difficult to get us, it is very easy to lose us.
Dear hotel GM,
an 'old school' check in is a ritual. It simply works. We are humans, not BOTS!
And, as humans, we do store our data very efficiently, we keep them in mind and we do not forget, Not to say forgive.
With my very best regards
Ettore Bellucci
Daily hotel consultant
Frequently Hotel Client
— Ettore Bellucci