4 Ways Concierges Can Use Technology to Craft the Guest Experience | By Alex Shashou

Whether it’s booking travel online, buying a book or watching porn, for years, the role of technology has been to improve our access to information and our ability to act on that information. As a result, consumers have become increasingly independent and able to satisfy their needs through technology. In economics this is called disintermediation – the removal of intermediaries from a supply chain, or the “cutting out of the middlemen” in connection with a transaction or a series of transactions. We’ve seen Uber do it to the taxi companies, airlines to the travel agents and so on. In the hotel, that “middleman” has always been the concierge – the highly polished, extremely knowledgeable “Golden Keys,” who could unlock the best restaurants in town for the guests who asked the nicest. The concierge was historically the guests’ access point to all the information they were seeking on local services and products.