There was an article in today's Boston Globe about how the Boston Harbor Hotel just earned 5 Mobil stars, after being docked down to 3 a few years ago. One thing mentioned as an example of superior service was that the hotel

quote:

created a full-time position for a "guest historian" shortly after losing its fourth star.

The day before guests check in, the historian Googles them to dig up birthdays, anniversaries, children's names, professional affiliations, hobbies, food preferences, and any other information that could help the hotel customize their experience. The historian may even make a few phone calls to find out middle initials, so monograms will be correct.

Would you want your hotel Googling you? Maybe it's just because I'm not part of the Facebook generation, but I have to say that whole approach kind of creeps me out. I don't want my hotelier digging into my private life; I just want them to give me a nice room with decent service.

- Roz

Five star hotels have always done this. Before the internet they just kept files.

I couldn't agree more, because I relish my privacy - but I can see that some would like the (over) personalised touch. It's sort of what top hotel concierges and restaurants have been doing for years for regular and VIP customers, though without the aid of the internet.

Could a search really dig all that information up for Mr Average Customer in a relatively short time? There must be information on this site about my food preferences, for example - but in the unsearched Gold Members section (in the Food and Drink thread)and my real name isn't given anywhere. Where else ? I'd be very suprised if search could find the other things.

I know, I'll be my own 'historian' and try it out.

Later: well, I tried and nothing of any use (except for a bit of insight into my brother in law's political leanings!) We have an unusual surname, so didn't have to wade through heaps of irrelevances. There was a lot of detail on someone with my name - totally wrong person, though. I also tried my much travelled husband's name - his came up in relation to the many conferences that he speaks at which I suppose would cover the professional affiliations that the quote refers to: but he books in under the name of the company anyway, so no great leap there.

quote:

There was a lot of detail on someone with my name - totally wrong person, though.

That's a good point -- what if they come up with all this "personalized" information and it isn't you at all but someone with the same name!

I can understand keeping files on frequent travelers if they obtain the information from you when you've stayed there, but not assigning someone to go out on the Internet and see what they can dig up.

- Roz

What a fun exercise.
I will expect my next stay at a high end hotel to have all the homeopathic treatments I need to treat my acne, have toys for my 3 year old to play with in our room, make sure there are lots of hangover remedies in the bathroom cupboard, (a Wendy Ashworth on Face Book who is only about 40 years younger than me) and treat me VERY well as my Slow Travel Cornwall notes come up at the top of my google list.

I do eventually find me on the local cancer iniative group I used to sit on and some of the meetings I've had at work but mostly there are my "reviews"!
Wendy

Or how about some proactive 'placement' ?- if I was planning on going to the hotel in question, I could plant some preferences around the internet and see just how effective the historian was !!

There's something rather Orwellian about this whole idea. In the contemporary world nothing is private, right?

I don't think most of us here have anything to worry about though, since, as has been mentioned, most of us don't use our real names when posting and only Gold members can access profiles.

I Google members of my family and some friends occasionally since I have reason to think that I'll find something (particularly in the case of my father), and I want to see what's there. I hadn't Googled my name in a while, however, so I just did after reading this thread. I only found a few things - all legitimate and all from my former life as a college professor: a few references to papers or articles of which I was one author and to a professional conference program I chaired. Nothing juicy, fortunately or unfortunately.

Ann

The only time my name appears on S T is when I've been "published" eg here,scroll right to the end.
Maybe that's something worth bearing in mind?
Wendy

No. I'm ticklish!

Well since when you google me I come up high on accessible travel you'd think I'd get a decent handicap room. NOT. At least not so far.

When you google me, the only two results are Amazon book reviews.
One for my friend Judith Dupre's book "Churches" and the other for "Chow! Venice"

That would tell my hotel that I like churches and I want to eat well when visiting Venice.
Looks like my deep dark secrets are safe.

I know that the better hotels do that, but I still feel that my privacy has been violated. I try not to think about it too much.

Hi

I wouldn't mind this as I'm pretty open when it comes to the use of my own name, the pictures that I post on my homepage etc. So as long as they were googling my name to give me better service I wouldn't mind :-)

As far as the "success" of such an approach goes, there are going to be two deep divides.

The first is, as mentioned by Roz, that between my generation and the succeeding Facebook generations. The younger folks have a ton of personal stuff posted. (That tendency has even become a sticking point for job interviews. I've heard several programs on the NPR in the last year about how stupid and embarrassing it can be to have one's interviewer mention the idiotic drivel found on one's personal pages.) So for younger people, hotels might successfully find personalizing info, but they won't for people like me.

The second divide is between the rich&famous and nobodies like myself. Obviously you could go a long way towards personalizing, say, Paris H's hotel stay, but not mine.

972 google hits for me, almost all of them in forums about using various computer programs. A few of them refer to the Lovebunny pages, so a really diligent researcher could read about us.

When you "google" me, you get a reference to a magazine article that I wrote in ----1969-----that some guy features on his resumé! He was one of five subjects of the article, and is far from famous, or even well known.