Text 5 At the reception desk

Clerk: Hi! Can I help you?

Martin: Yes, we had a reservation for this weekend.

C: All right, what is your name, sir?

M: Baum, Martin Baum.

C: Baum … Baum … Oh, yes, here it is. A double for two nights?

M: Yes, that’s right. But we were wondering… would you happen to have a suite available this weekend, something with a living area and a kitchenette?

C: Well, the only one that’s available this weekend is the executive suite, and that’ll run you $140 a night.

M: I see. That’s pretty high…

C: You know, sir, this double is more than twenty feet square, and it has a refrigerator.

M: Oh, really? That sounds fine, then. What do you say, Sally?

Sally: Sounds good to me, too.

C: Good, the double then. Do you have a credit card, sir?

M: No, I’ll be paying cash.

C: Then I’ll have to ask you to pay in advance. Fifty‑five a night, plus $8 tax comes to $126. And would you fill out this registration form, please? Here’s a pen. Just your name, address, and the make and license number of your car.

M: OK …here you are. And travellers checks for $130.

C: Fine, Mr. Baum. Here’s $4 change. Check out time is 12:00 noon. The bellman will take you up… Harvey! Room 615… If you need anything, just let me know.

M: Thank you. Good night.

Text 6 Hotels of the future

"It’s more a projection of what hotels are going to be like a few years ahead.

The first thing we’ll have simplified is Reception, where checking in will take a few seconds at the most. The majority of our people will arrive directly from the air terminals by helicopter, so main reception point will be a private roof heliport. Secondarily there’ll be lower floor receiving points where cars and limousines can drive directly in eliminating transfer to a lobby, the way we do it now.

Guest with reservations will have been sent a key‑coded card. They’ll insert it in a frame and immediately be on their way by individual escalator section to a room which may have been cleared for use only seconds earlier. If a room isn’t ready – and it’ll happen, just as it does now – we’ll have small portable way stations. These will be cubicles with a couple of chairs, washbasin and a space for luggage, just enough to freshen up after a journey and give some privacy right away. People can come and go, as they do with regular rooms, and my engineers are working on a scheme for making the way stations mobile so that later they can latch on directly to the allocated space.

For those driving their own cars there’ll be parallel arrangements, with coded, moving lights to guide them into personal parking stalls, from where other individual escalators will take them directly to their rooms. In all cases we’ll curtail baggage handling, using high‑speed sorters and conveyers, and baggage will be rooted into rooms, actually arriving ahead of the guests. Similarly, all other services will have automated room delivery systems – valet, beverages, food, florist, drugstore, newsstand; even the final bill can be received and paid by room conveyer. And incidentally, apart from other benefits, I’ll have broken the tipping system, a tyranny we’ve suffered – along with our guests – for years too long…

My building design and accommodation will keep to a minimum the need for any guest room to be entered by a hotel employee. Beds, receiving into walls, are to be serviced by machine from outside.

All this, and more, can be accomplished now. Our remaining problems, which naturally will be solved, are principally of co‑ordination, construction, and investment."