Best Check-in? No Check-in!


It’s 2025. You can fly across the Atlantic, binge watch a series at 30,000 feet, call a ride with a tap, and unlock your front door with your phone. But step into many hotels and suddenly it’s like the future hit pause at the front desk. The check-in process, still clunky, still manual, still weirdly sacred, somehow remains frozen in time. And the most ironic part? We keep calling it “hospitality.”
Imagine you bring a time traveler from 1925 on a journey today: even if they are rich and quite experienced, they would be totally flashed! Cross-Atlantic flight, entertained by Netflix, checking for an Uber after landing, directions on Google Maps, posting a selfie on Instagram in front of the hotel, going to reception – and then, for the very first time, our time-traveler would say: Well, this I know, this is a hotel check-in, only the key looks a bit strange.
How come, now in 2025, this check-in process is still so resistant against change?
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