酒店业的未来在哪里

    另一个创新条件已经成熟的领域是客房本身。从某种程度上看，所有客房的设计都是一样的。不过，曾经在宾馆里摸黑寻找电灯开关的人，都知道它们的位置多多少少是不一样的。纽约大学(New York University)普雷斯顿-罗伯特-蒂奇酒店业、旅游业与体育管理业中心(Preston Robert Tisch Center for Hospitality, Tourism, and Sports Management)主任比约恩•汉森哀叹道：“要想在酒店房间里弄清楚怎样开关窗帘，恐怕不容易吧？你要从哪边向哪边拉？为什么我们不能用一款像魔杖一样的移动设备来开关窗帘？或者如果有人不想在夜里到处乱摸电灯开关，我们能不能让客人的脚一着地，灯就自动亮起来？”能从智能技术中获益最多的，或许正是这些最平凡无奇的细节。

    关注这些细节的宾馆也不是没有，比如离汉森所在的地方不远就是CitizenM酒店的时代广场店。在这家酒店，客人用一款三星(Samsung)平板电脑就能控制客房的灯光、百叶窗和室内温度。（酒店把这款平板叫做“情绪平板”。）CitizenM的阿姆斯特丹店承诺会记住你喜欢的客户设置，“赶走传统酒店的同质体验。”

    Yotel也提供了一些个性化服务，但并不是很多。兰德伯格带我看了一间大约有170平方英尺的客房，酒店方面称这是一间高级客房，房里有一张床，你只需要按一个按钮，床就会自动缩回去，营造出更多的空间。他还指出，只要客人走进房间，传感器就会自己点亮电灯。等客人离开房间，它就会自动调节室内温度以节省能源。

    我们当然也有理由警惕这些新技术。如果客房里的这些小工具坏了那么一两件，可能就会破坏对于客人来说最重要的东西——舒适感。但是如果客房里的“智能电灯”不亮了，又或者房间里的恒温器出了问题，谁还会在乎用手机就能锁上房门？兰德伯格表示：“对我们来说，科技的意义在于改善客人的体验，而不是我们有生意可做的主要原因。我们本质上仍然是酒店经营者，最重要的东西始终是顾客的体验。”

    我问旅行音乐家克劳福德，他在未来主义范儿的Yotel入住后，是否感觉缺了些什么。沉默了好一会儿，他说没有。“老实说，我想要的都得到了。我想要的只是一个好的、干净的、安静的、实用的宾馆。”（财富中文网）

    译者：朴成奎

    Another area ripe for innovation is the hotel room itself. In some ways, and by design, all rooms are alike. Yet anyone who has ever searched aimlessly in the dark for the light switch knows that they can be slightly and annoyingly different. “How easy is it to figure out how to open and close drapes in a hotel room?” laments Bjorn Hanson, divisional dean of the Preston Robert Tisch Center for Hospitality, Tourism, and Sports Management at New York University. “Which end do you go to? Why couldn’t we have a mobile device or a wand to open the drapes, close the drapes? Or at night if someone wants to get up and doesn’t want to reach around and try to find the light switch, how about if when you put your feet on the floor, floor lighting comes on?” It’s these slight, even mundane details that could benefit the most from a touch of smart technology.

    A hotel with attention to these details does exist. Hanson need only cross town to visit the CitizenM Times Square, where guests can control a room’s lighting, blinds, and temperature with a Samsung tablet computer. (The hotel calls it a “mood pad.”) CitizenM Amsterdam promises to remember your preferred settings to have the room just the way you like it, “removing the traditional feeling of anonymity from the hotel experience.”

    The Yotel provides for some personalization, but not much. Landberg shows me around a 170-square-foot room, which it calls a premium cabin, with a bed that retracts at the touch of a button to create more space. He points to a sensor that turns lights on when guests walk into the room and adjusts the temperature when they’re gone to conserve energy.

    There is reason to be wary of all this technology, of course. If the in-room gadgetry breaks, innovative hotels may find themselves jeopardizing the one thing customers value most: comfort. No one’s going to care that they can unlock the door with their phone if they can’t get the “smart” lights to turn on, or if the thermostat thinks it’s 30 degrees cooler than it actually is. “For us, technology is about enhancing your experience and not becoming the main reason for why we have a business,” Landberg says. “We’re still hoteliers at heart. It’s all about the guest experience.”

    I ask Crawford, the musician, if he felt he his stay at the futuristic Yotel lacked anything. After a long pause, he says no. “I got everything I need, to be honest. I just want a good, clean, quiet, functional hotel.”