Last night, as I prepared to make reservations at the
world-class Hotel Mayfair in Paris, I got my credit card ready and ran through what I would say on the phone. “Bonjour! Could I have help in English?”
The woman on the other end would greet me with a kind, Parisian brogue and begin to ask about my intinerary. I would jokingly ask for the “Pro-France American Rate” and hear her laughter 6,000 miles away. The vast differences in time zones and cultures would be transcended by a single phone connection.
But none of that happened. I went to the Mayfair Web site and discovered that online rates are the biggest bargains. I couldn’t even find a phone number if I wanted to.
As hotels worldwide become more savvy of the international marketplace — taking advantage of the technology that connects continents — the romance of making a long-distance call for reservations is gone. Plus, the Web sites of countless hotels, museums, tour groups, and even restaurants are offered in every language and accept every currency.
I cannot complain too much about the shift, and I certainly understand it. It’s expensive to make a long-distance call, and the ability to go online at any hour and change my mind at will is wonderful. Naturally, businesses can boost their bookings when they pop up in Google searches all over the world.
But I still long for the mysterious foreign accents, the cross-language confusion — the human voice attached to the transaction. I would like to imagine what is going on in that room, what the person looks like, what kind of people are around.
But at 10:30 last night in San Diego, when the next day was starting for the Parisians, I was confined to a few, impersonal clicks. I guess my whiff of culture will have to wait till I get to the front desk.