Technology genuinely improves arrivals when it removes friction, and quietly damages them when it removes humans from moments that needed one. On the winning side: pre-arrival information through apps or messages, telling people exactly where to go and what to expect, attacks the biggest cause of arrival stress before it starts.
The failure mode is equally clear: automation as a wall rather than a fast lane.
The pattern that works is choice plus visible backup: automate the routine path fully, keep an obvious human channel for everyone else, and redeploy the staff that automation freed into hosting rather than processing. Technology should buy back human time and spend it on the arrivals that need warmth; where it is used instead to remove people entirely, first impressions measurably suffer.