Skiing in Les Carroz, France, this week with a group of travel industry veterans reminded me how pointless some of the technology barriers holiday makers face are.
The ski resort is a convenient 55-minute transfer from Geneva, allowing a late Sunday arrival before three days of intensive skiing, and a 19:50 return flight that enables you to ski until 3pm on the final day. However, the compromise is a short bus transfer each morning from our apartments to the ski lift to the slopes of Flaine.
No problem, because having stayed in the resort before, I knew that there were conveniently located lockers underneath the Gondola station; however, when we approached the well-signed and manned booth to pay for our lockers, we were abruptly informed by a staff member that all lockers needed to be booked online by scanning a QR code and could only be reserved at 4.30 pm, rather than at the counter as I had done just a few months earlier.
When I asked why we could no longer simply book a locker on demand, I received only the French Gallic shrug and the phrase “techno logistic”. However, after four industry veterans tried to use the app for 25 minutes, we were then told by a more helpful lady that the app rarely worked, and she could use her personal account if we paid her cash. So, full circle, apart from the requirement for a tip.
However, we then realised that the only way to open the lockers was with a code, and we had to find the machine where you entered it. How bloody pointless, what was wrong with keys?
We also observed the usual case of online booking for Ski higher with large franchises like Skiset, which do not sync with the systems of individual shops. Although they can retrieve booking details from the vouchers’ QR codes, we still had to enter our names and contact details into their systems before we could proceed to ski fitting. Not a big issue if there weren’t 20 other people queuing to do the same.
Although, on the other hand, the online check-in system for Pierre Vacance meant that when we arrived 15 minutes after reception closed at 8.15, we simply collected our apartment keys and check-in packets from the night lock box, which was accessed using a simple 4-digit code automatically emailed to me when we had not arrived on time. Admittedly, it was lucky that I had seen the email, so WhatsApp might be a better approach, given that they also have my phone number.
However, like most people, my biggest bugbear is the new electronic immigration systems installed across Europe, which have left the English Brexiters waiting in ridiculously long immigration queues.
I have now registered and used the electronic machines on six separate occasions, so why do I still need to go through this process and queue again to see an immigration officer just so they can stamp my passport? What does this actually achieve?
Fortunately, because of pressure from airports and immigration services, this process will be phased out from 10th April 2026, so there isn’t much longer to endure.
However, it’s not doom and gloom for all travel technology.
My veteran travel colleagues were actually impressed by a quick demo of Travel Voices AI Holiday Rep, which could review all the local bars and restaurants around our apartment’s location, providing recommendations and directions. Yes, all this can be done by holidaymakers scrolling endlessly through Google, but it’s twenty times faster to have a complex conversation about your needs with an AI Rep who can then send directions via WhatsApp and make bookings on your behalf.
They were, however, less enthusiastic about my suggestion to create a holiday book documenting the trip using my new Travel Reviews tool, as they felt it would be a very bad idea to reveal who in the travel industry made it onto the top 10 dickheads of the century awards, which was just one of the topics dominating conversations.
Overall, the Travel Industry is very tech-savvy, but in a world increasingly dominated by AI Search and purpose, I think it’s a good reminder of the power of human-to-human service.
Not everything improves simply by throwing pointless technology at it, as the Les Carroz locker service might want to consider in future.
All in all, it was a fantastic trip with lifelong industry friends that we plan to make an annual event while our bodies can still handle hiking and drink litres and litres of wine and beer each night.
As they say, “One more year”!