Bangkok, the world’s most visited city, is readying the runway for tourists, and its new digs should be a wake-up call to anyone itching to jet away. 

Its hotels are deploying facial-recognition tools and touch-free buttons in elevators. Buffets are disappearing. Want to eat at a local restaurant? You might have to deal with plastic dividers on your table. Room service? The server will leave the cart outside your room. 

Bangkok was among the first major cities to jump-start its hospitality sector, but across the rest of the world, plans to reopen hotels look similar: Expect temperature checks on arrival, branded PPE, and one-way hallways marked with signs on the floor.

Sorry, sir, but this hotel, motel, Holiday Inn is maxed out 

Don’t be alarmed by the empty lobby — hotels are leaving many of their rooms open on purpose. The Eden Roc Cap Cana in the Dominican Republic, for instance, has already promised it won’t exceed 30% capacity. 

That’s in part because many hotels won’t usher new guests into your room the day you check out. Best Western has said its cleaning staff will wait at least 24 hours before even entering rooms after guests leave.

And don’t forget: Check-in is happening curbside now. Key cards? They have to be sanitized too much, so hotels are switching to mobile locks. If you want a bathrobe, you’re going to have to ask for it. Bellhops, valets, minibars, decorative throw pillows, desk notepads — those are all on the outs. 

Please no one tell Mr. Worldwide any of this, because he will be devastated. That afterparty in the hotel lobby? Also a no-go. 

In the new hotel economy, only some will triumph 

Don’t leave the light on for Motel 6, because Forbes predicts that when hotels do roar back into action, luxury travel will be the first to take off. The big reason: Privacy. 

Some ritzy hotels are already courting the sophisticado class with, as one French resort put it,  “luxury and exclusiveness.” Translation: You won’t have to interact with other humans. 

Kid-free hotels might be another big winner. According to one tech travel group, 65% of new hotel bookings are for couples, up from 51% in the fall — because which parents don’t need a little social distancing from their tweens right now?

Watch your back, Bezos.

The pandemic transformed the ecommerce landscape, and this week, we got some very loud signals about how much has changed: Online sales at big chains like Walmart (up 74%) and Target (up 141%) went gangbusters in Q1.

But one of the biggest beneficiaries of the online-shopping boom is Shopify, the Canadian company whose northward-bound stock price is making some people wonder whether Bezos ought to look over his shoulder.

Shopify wants to mom-and-popify online retail

Last month, Shopify rolled out a new app (called Shop… ’cuz if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it) to connect customers to nearby merchants who use the company’s ecommerce platform. (There are 1m+ of them.)

Bloomberg says the company’s going big in other ways, too: A tool called Shopify Balance will let business owners track bills and pay expenses.

Then came the big reveal: Mark Zuckerberg announced Facebook Shops, which lets business owners sell inside of their Facebook and Instagram footprints. 

The announcement led to the kind of hiccup only an over-caffeinated trader could love: Shopify’s stock price tanked on the heels of Zuck’s announcement, only to surge even higher when Tobias Lutke, Shopify’s CEO, calmly joined the chat.

But is an alliance with Zuck unholy?

The Wall Street Journal projected that it’s Facebook — not necessarily Shopify, just one of several partners in the Facebook Shops launch — that would end up eating Bezos’s lunch. Or maybe a bite of his breakfast octopus.

The tech writer and investor Om Malik asked: “Why do I fear that in the end Facebook will suck Shopify dry of its utility and become a competitor?” The ‘book, he wrote, “gobbles and destroys everything in its way.”

Other than Grimes and, er, X Æ A-12, no one bears the brunt of Elon Musk’s controversies as much as Lyndsay Tucker.

The 25-year-old skin care consultant, who spoke to NPR this week, has the misfortune of owning Musk’s old phone number. 

And whenever a new tweet from the Tesla CEO hits the news, a deluge of Musk fans and acquaintances, plus some reporters, sets her cell abuzz.

Even on normal days, Tucker gets about 3 messages meant for Musk, including one person who texted her blueprints to build a bionic limb and a call from the IRS (which had just a few tax questions). 

Keeping up with the Musks? It’s a lot of work

Tucker has never met Musk, and until she got the new phone number around 2 years ago, she had no idea who he was.

Tucker didn’t understand the gravity of the situation until she spoke to her mom. When she mentioned she’s been getting texts meant for someone named “Elon Musk,” her mom’s jaw dropped.

But now she is resigned to keeping tabs on all of the CEO’s latest antics — it’s the only way she can prepare for the onslaught of texts she’s about to receive. 

She told NPR, “Whenever I see his name pop up in the news, I’m like, ‘OK, I have to actually learn what he said because, chances are, someone is going to message me about it or call me about it.’”