Six hundred experts in customer support, quality, organizational development, and business systems brainstormed a response to the question "What innovation would most positively affect the customer's experience at a business hotel?"

Teams of eight experts, over 36 groups in all, worked independently, but they all came up with the same answer. "Customer profiling," came their universal answer. "Take advantage of your knowledge of the customer and customize his experience to his tastes. If he drinks decaf coffee, make sure that there's extra decaf coffee already loaded in the coffee maker. If he reads the Wall Street Journal, give him that instead of USA Today. If he always wants a low floor, feather pillows, and extra electrical plugs, make sure he has that."

They see this as universal. From the instant a customer makes a reservation, or even calls for a reservation, the use of modern computer systems will make the experience as though he's visiting old friends who already know his every whim. Caller ID, linked to the customer database means that the phone will be answered, "Hello, Mr. Pence." If I travel to England every spring and tend to make my reservations in January, the computer screen in front of the reservationist would show that. "Will you be traveling to Yorkshire again this April? I have your favorite room available." It will be the same kind of experience I have with Wendy, my local travel agent, who knows me when I come in the door and has all of my preferences, not only on file in her computer, but instantly on hand in her fabulously retentive brain.

You'll start to see this in the very near future while booking travel on the internet, where programmers continue to make the booking engines for Expedia and others more and more intuitive, learning from your previous bookings.

Computer systems will talk to each other. The hotel, in computer contact with the car rental company, will know my license plate number. When I drive up, the parking attendants will address me by name, probably with a catchy phrase, like "Hello, Mr. Pence, welcome home to the Hyatt."

My frequent stayer card will open the elevator. A TV screen will light up. "Hello, Mr. Pence. Your room number is 621, the corner room to your right. Everything is ready for you. Welcome home," it might say as it lifted me to the sixth floor. A light in front of the room may blink, showing me the way. My frequent stayer card would also serve as the door key. If I'm traveling with others, extra keys will be waiting for me in the room.

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Inside the room, everything I like will be there. The candy dish would have Hershey's kisses for me, M&M's for someone else, gummy bears in a third room, all depending on the occupant's preferences. I don't drink coffee, so the coffee maker would be gone, giving me more space on my countertop. But for others, the coffee machine will be pre-loaded and maybe even started up with their favorite flavor of coffee. The right pillows, the room temperature would be preset, the station on the radio, the wake up time on the alarm, everything about the experience would be set according to my own pre-determined tastes.

The TV set would already be on a website-type interface, where they have answers to every question that I'm likely to know. "Hello, Mr. Pence," the screen would say. "I know you like restaurants with extensive wine lists - here are a few that I think you might consider for dinner tonight." Or maybe, "Since you're arriving so far behind schedule, and the flying weather has been so bad, we have placed a snack in the refrigerator for you." Of course the snack would be some kind of comfort food - just the sort of thing grandma would think of to help you cope with a bad flight and confusing driving directions.

Would this kind of service come cheap? Depends on your definition of cheap. It would certainly be cheap compared to this kind of service twenty years ago. Before computers, the only way to do this would be for someone to know your tastes and arrange for everything in advance. Human beings would have to recognize you by your face or your entourage, and convey this information in person. People are expensive. Computer automation is expensive to implement the first time, but spread over thousands or millions of hotel guests, the expense is reasonable.

Even bargain chains that specialize in clean, comfortable, places to sleep with a minimum of frills will have some measure of this automation. The clerk would get information about your room location preference in his database when he types in your credit card number. He won't be able to switch out the pillows on such short notice, but he can put you close to the ice machine if that's on your list of preferences. Probably more importantly, he'll have information like my love of live music, how long it's been since I've been to his town, and what time I'm likely to want to wake up. "Hi, Mr. Pence. Welcome back to Oak Hill. It's always nice to have you here every spring for the art auction. Will you like to have an 8AM wakeup set as usual?"

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In some ways, it will save the hotels money. When I travel alone, I use fewer towels, which means that the number of towels can be predetermined. A lower towel inventory is made possible. Unscheduled calls for special requests would diminish, because the special requests have already been fulfilled or scheduled. Not only will every guest get what he wants, he won't have to be given more than he wants.

Convenience does come at a cost other than money. It comes with a loss of privacy. In the past, if I always have a brandy sent to my room after dinner, no one kept track of that other than the single hotel's billing department. But with this system, the hotel computers will know how many towels I use. They'd know what I read. They'll know how much trash I throw out. Everything I do would go into the database so that they can better anticipate my desires. But I may not want to have every hotel employee to know my habits. I especially don't want thieves to know my habits.

If the system isn't implemented carefully, my wife may be the first one into the room and presented with an interactive TV screen saying, "Welcome, back, Mr. Pence, and I see you have your mistress with you again. Here's a rundown on this city's various red-light districts and places to purchase illegal drugs." There are some things that some travelers would rather their wives not know.

But with proper security, including the ability to travel incognito, and with properly thought-out execution, the system will make traveling to strange cities feel just like coming home.

About the author, Paul Pence: Not a life-long Rhode Islander, Paul got to Rhode Island as fast as he could. He has 25 years of writing experience and numerous publication credits including the Providence Journal, the East Greenwich Magazine, Weissmann Travel Reports, Travel Lady Magazine, Jackhammer, Your Skin and Sun, TravelNotes, TexWoman, and many others.

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