Hotels Take 'Know Your Customer' To A New Level

"American hoteliers just don't get the details of individual consumers", said a Japanese executive to me many years ago. He continued, "I love our [Japanese] hotels because they anticipate to the finest detail what I want before I even realize I want it."

I thought politely to myself, "what Japanese hotels are these because the one's I know sure aren't anticipating my needs."

Well. Finally the technology is here for a hotel to make the guest experience much more personalized. The hotel industry is taking a lesson from Amazon in anticipating individual guest's needs before they even realize that they want it. The Wall Street Journal ($$) writes on this trend.

For the past few years, hotels have been asking guests about their preferences on amenities like bedding and what to stock in the minibar. Now they are going a step further: discreetly monitoring what guests do during their stays and then recording that information in computer systems that are shared by the hotel company's different properties.

The efforts range from logging the kind of fruit that is left on room-service plates, to noting that a guest is sniffling and sending hot tea to his room. While such doting service is great comfort to some travelers, some privacy-conscious customers are resisting the new nosiness.

Marriott today announced such a system in which it will share information it gathers with all of its family of hotels. This can help immensely in making a guest's stay a home away from home. Again, from the WSJ:

Peter Chang, a 29-year-old consultant from Los Angeles, recalls one experience where a Ritz-Carlton bartender heard him say he likes an expensive wine called Opus One, and a complimentary half-bottle was waiting for him when he returned to his room not long after. "It literally just showed up," he says.

Laurie Wooden, Ritz-Carlton's vice president of operations strategy, says, "When we learn something new about a guest, we like to be able to act on it right away."

How far can this go? Well, think Star Trek -- of being able to know who is in the house via RFID technology. And it's not just the Marriott hotels. Here's what Hilton is contemplating.

Hilton Hotels is researching a radio-frequency identification system that it will test next year; the idea is, guests will carry a micro-chipped card in their pocket that will inform the front desk when they walk into the hotel, allowing for quicker identification and check-in.

The ramifications of such high-tech monitoring can be unnerving to some. Marriott's system requires guests to opt in through an online form and it allows guests to sometimes opt out.