She said no but there’s free Internet in the lobby whereupon my fellow travellers and I (they too hadn’t switched off) went into a lengthy discourse about how hotels should not charge for Internet in rooms anymore.

“It’s like the gym. In the old days, hotels charged for gym use and now they don’t. The same should apply to Internet today,” I said in the same tone I had been using for the past five days at the WIT conference and related events.

At that moment, I realised the personal me had fused with the professional me to create a monster of a customer.

The staff nodded, listened politely. At the suite, she showed us the facilities which reduced us to silence for a while. Then she produced a bunch of Internet cards. “This is for your group,” she said, “to use the Internet in your room.”

Sometime along the drive, she had obviously called someone to say, hey, bunch of difficult customers, let’s please them.

With that, she won over a bunch of stressed-out, weary, hardened travel geeks who then became putty in her hands.

Indigo Pearl is situated in a corner of Phuket that still retains a touch of the old island feel. The resort embraces its tin mining history with style and pride. The neighbourhood is peppered with local seafood restaurants and bar. You can walk on the beach without being constantly harassed by touts.

One evening, we went out on a sunset cruise on the June Bahtra, an old Malaysian junk given new life as a tourist yacht. Out there, you feel the magic of being in Phuket, out on the ocean, away from the madding crowd, looking up at a pink sky as the sun makes way for the full moon – one of those definitive moments we all seek as travellers.

At the WIT conference, we talked a lot about experiences and there were a few definitive moments of learning.

1. We need to create an online experience customers can trust so that they buy from us

2. We need to have honest content that combines personality and point of view with crowd sourcing

3. We need to curate information that inspires and helps our customers make smarter and better choices when planning their travel

4. To avoid commoditization, we need to dig deep and rich into content (think longtail) to help our customers find unique, extraordinary experiences

5. We need to customize so that people can have better experiences during the actual trip – apps, browsers, mobile, customized travel guides such as Offbeat Guides or in service delivery

6. We need to hire creative people at all levels particularly at the service levels – people who can think quickly and act in the moment – such as the staff at Indigo Pearl.

7. We need to create a more engaging, enriching environment for loyal customers even as loyalty is being redefined by social media – should there be a Twitter index for customers, people?

8. We need to get young Japanese customers off their video games and make travel affordable and exciting for them

9. We need to be ready for China – one China, many markets, all big

10. We need to stop thinking online/offline, just travel. The two worlds are colliding. OTAs are moving from pure transaction to possible inspiration. Traditional travel agents and tour operators need to move from whatever space they are in. The new travel world is ripe for more intermediaries to get into the game.

Lying on deck on June Bahtra, I watched the clouds in the sky, changing shapes as they drifted past. One minute, I saw a swallow, the next an eagle. Finally, I had switched off. No more WIT. No more customer. Just dreamer.

May you soar like an eagle in the Cloud of Change.

Featured image credit (Lonely man relaxing in front of an amazing sunset in Cuba.): Ockra/iStock