Breaking free from Booking.com, star ratings, and Atout France, which awards them. Maja Hoffmann, punk hotelier?

In Arles, we booked and stayed at the Nord-Pinus, recently renovated, independently run. Directly through the establishment's website. Can one, in the hospitality industry — a complex trade — do without OTAs, Online Travel Agencies (Booking.com, Expedia, GetYourGuide...), without Atout France which awards the stars, without press offices, without televisions in the rooms?

In Arles, we had lunch at the Arlatan, delightfully, and discovered a pizzeria worthy of Roberta's or those conceived by Thierry Graffagnino, our "Jimmy Page" in the field. We were surprised to find no television in the room at Nord-Pinus, an establishment we had assumed was four-star rated. "Where the level of service delivered is that of a four-star" — that is not the same thing.

The satisfaction of travellers and tourists, the seamless customer experience offered at the right price, sometimes requires putting money into the product and freeing oneself from platforms and obligatory intermediaries.

Maja Hoffmann, at the head of the Maisons d'Arles — a punk hotelier?

Within the Maisons d'Arles, which currently brings together three hotels, the team of Maja Hoffmann — patron of Luma among other things — has decided not to list two of them on Booking.com. Not to place a television in the rooms at Nord-Pinus, explaining this when guests express surprise. Nor a coffee machine in those same rooms, perhaps to encourage guests to make their way to the bar?

We then wondered who awards the stars in France, what it costs, and how many hotel operators do without OTAs and Booking.com, for example. We reached out to the Atout France teams.

When you contact this state-run body, it is a chatbot that offers to reply — within 72 hours. Promoting tourism, a profession built on relationships and human encounters, without being reachable by phone, and so slowly — wow!

At the Maisons d'Arles, we received photos and answers to our questions in under twelve hours. And on the Nord-Pinus website, guest reviews receive responses free of spelling errors, written in a considered and detailed manner. It is probably easier to go off the beaten track when you are wealthy — yet it is no less courageous for that. Long live the punks!

Moy House, Ett Hem, Krone Regensberg, Abbaye de Tamié

Four establishments, places of pause, have recently left me with memorable impressions in terms of authentic hospitality experience — a word now thoroughly overused. Ett Hem (in Stockholm), years ago, was popular enough to place prospective guests on a waiting list. The same at the Abbaye de Tamié, where it is the Brother in charge of hospitality who gets in touch, when a place becomes available, to invite you to come and share a retreat and soup, in silence. Near Zurich, Krone Regensberg is a remarkable Relais & Châteaux in every respect: location, view, restaurant. In Lahinch, in the south of Ireland, Moy House has closed — what a shame!

Only one of these establishments is on Booking.com. The Ireland's Blue Book is a serious guide. And the brooklynisation of the world is not inevitable.

Manuel Jacquinet.