Perhaps true, but still the hotel should not provide the promise of a working email address, if it has no intention of responding. If they aren't Internet-savvy, fine, but don't waste people's time by promising Internet responses when there's no intention of doing so.

Hi nonna,

When I wrote yesterday, the website wasn't working.

Trudaine, I appreciate what you are saying, but I don't think that's the situation, nor my experience in France that hotels won't answer email unless they are like Paris, Las Vegas. I think you are being defensive and just saying things that aren't true. I always stay in small, independently owned hotels and they all answer email (most of them, anyway, a few have not and then I move on) in France. I've been using email for reservations and correspondence in France for several years at this point, as well as other countries, of course.

It's really the person and what they are used to. I've had the same thing happen with some companies in the US and it got down to the fact that the person had been around for many years in their job and just didn't "like" using computers. They were in a position where they had tried to get by and could for many years without them. IN my case, it was an online US sheet music store that had a very sophisticated website encouraging email orders and gave an email address for questions and service. I had a question on the contents of a book as sales were nonrefundable. The person did not answer, so I followed up a week later. They responded that it was too much trouble to look in the book as it was in inventory, and that they preferred that people call them, not email, and I shouldn't have emailed if I wanted the best service.

I responded that I did not understand that attitude, as they could respond to email at their leisure and in off hours when it was convenient without being interrupted by customers. I also told them they had obviously paid someone money to build an elaborate online website to encourage sales and gave an email address and nowhere did it say that they preferred phone calls for best service.

And, that it wasn't just their preference, that I preferred email and that was how I wanted to do business because it was more convenient for me, didn't waste my time being put on hold, etc., gave me something in writing I could review, and that I could go over it in the evening when I had more free time, etc. I also emailed the publisher of this book in NY and told them this retail outlet would not answer my questions about the contents of the book and said they couldn't find out, and that they had been rude to me by chastising me for using email when they had it on their website.

So, they lost me as a customer, and I found out that the publisher called them up to find out what they were doing and why they had responded to a potential customer that way. The publisher emailed me with the information I sought and apologized for that store.

Anyway, I checked the website later and saw the website changed the email address so it went to someone else in the company, probably someone more computer-savvy and who wasn't anti-email and wasn't going to get mad at customers for using email. I supposed that was the best result I was going to expect. The store did email and sort of apologize also, although it was one of those passive apologies that basically doesn't really say they were sorry for what they did but were sorry you felt that way.

So, it's not small businesses and not France (which is pretty technically adept, they had Minitel years ago), but certain people.