Balancing Technology and Human Touch in Luxury Hospitality: A Qualitative Study of Service Staff Experiences at Hilton Hotels in France

The rapid integration of digital technologies and artificial intelligence has transformed service delivery within the luxury hospitality sector, creating new opportunities for efficiency while raising questions about the preservation of personalized guest experiences. This study examines how technology and human interaction are balanced in luxury hospitality through an analysis of service staff experiences at Hilton Hotels in France. The research seeks to understand how employees perceive and manage the growing presence of digital tools in their daily work while maintaining the high standards of personalized service expected in luxury hospitality environments. Adopting an interpretivist research approach, the study employed a qualitative methodology based on semi-structured interviews with seven service staff members across three hotel properties, primarily Hilton Paris Opera, with comparative insights from Waldorf Astoria Versailles and a non-Hilton luxury hotel. Data were analyzed using NVivo 15 through reflexive thematic analysis. The analysis was informed by Service-Dominant Logic, Emotional Labor Theory, and the Technology Acceptance Model, providing a comprehensive framework for understanding the interaction between technology adoption, employee behavior, and guest service delivery. The findings show that property management systems, CRM, guest-messaging systems, and AI tools are now central to luxury hotel operations, but system failures often affect service quality more than the technologies themselves. Guest preferences for technology vary by age, nationality, and travel purpose, while staff continue to rely on emotional intelligence, personalized communication, and face-to-face interaction, especially in conflict situations. Although AI can support service delivery, the study confirms that warmth, discretion, empathy, and personalization still depend on human interaction and cannot be fully replaced by digital systems.