[Travelandtourism] Hotel companies are racing to create a better room key.

[Peachtree Travel]

On to the future.  If this catches on we will have to see how accessible 
this is for the blind traveler.

Reese

 New hotels are moving away from key cards, allowing guests to use their 
mobile phone near the doorknob to enter their room. But as Andrea Petersen 
reports, the move is also raising questions about privacy and security.
.The big selling point of the new keys, executives say, is that they let 
travelers skip the front desk and go straight to their rooms. That could be 
particularly welcome at big convention hotels and Las Vegas spots where 
check-in lines can be maddeningly long.

"Think of the business traveler who goes to the same hotel every week. He 
can go straight to his room, drop off his bag and get right to his meeting," 
says Pete Sears, senior vice president of operations at Hyatt Hotels Corp. 
The company, which goes through five million key cards a year in its North 
American properties, has been testing an "Express Welcome" service at two of 
its Andaz hotels in California where guests can use their Gold Passport 
loyalty card as a key. Hyatt will be testing the service at two more hotels 
in San Francisco and Vancouver, British Columbia, in the next few months.

The new systems cut down on one of the big annoyances of typical key cards 
that use magnetic strips: the cards sometimes demagnetize and stop working. 
Carrying your key next to your cellphone is often all it takes to make one 
of these keys conk out. "We want guests to be able to get into their room on 
the very first try," says Josh Weiss, vice president of brand and guest 
technology at Hilton Worldwide Inc. The company just completed a test at its 
Doubletree hotel in downtown Nashville of technology that lets travelers use 
their cellphone as a key.

Hotels don't see much cost savings from the changes but expect the moves 
will help them stand out in customer service. So far, tests of new types of 
keys have been limited and it is unclear how widespread the new technologies 
will become.

There may be security and privacy questions. Hotels generally send travelers 
their room number via text message or email, a potential concern if someone 
else gets access to your phone.

Hilton and InterContinental Hotels Group PLC are experimenting with 
technology from OpenWays, a closely-held Chicago company. The system usually 
works like this: Travelers who sign up are sent their hotel room number to 
their cellphone via text message. They also receive a phone number to dial. 
When guests arrive outside their room, they dial the phone number, which 
accesses OpenWays' server and sends an audible tone to the phone. The 
traveler puts the phone's earpiece next to the lock to open the door. For 
security reasons, OpenWays says each tone is active for only a few seconds 
to prevent, for instance, someone from recording a tone to try to access a 
room later.

IHG, which tested OpenWays at a Holiday Inn & Suites near Chicago and a 
Holiday Inn Express in Houston late last year, said there was a "learning 
curve" for users to figure out how to position the phone so the door would 
unlock, according to a statement from Verchele Wiggins, vice president, 
global brand management at Holiday Inn. Hilton said that during its 
six-month test, only a small portion of guests invited to try the technology 
did so.


Hilton Worldwide

A Doubletree hotel tested letting guests unlock rooms with a cellphone.
.Hotels experimenting with permanent keys tend to be using what's known as 
online lock systems with radio-frequency identification (RFID) technology. 
The cards include an RFID chip. The hotel can remotely turn those cards on 
and off and assign them to specific rooms.

Starwood Hotels & Resorts has rolled out a "Smart Check-In" program at three 
of its Aloft brand hotels in Lexington, Ky., New York and Dallas. About 
5,000 Starwood Preferred Guest members have received RFID-enabled loyalty 
cards that can be used as keys at those properties. Starwood is expanding 
the program to two additional Aloft properties in Jacksonville, Fla., and 
Brooklyn, N.Y., this year.

Hotel companies say RFID-enabled keys boost security, since companies can 
track every time a key is used-in the elevator, hotel room, or parking 
garage. Hyatt uses the key-card information to track guests' arrivals. When 
travelers first use their permanent key upon arrival-in the elevator, for 
example-a message pops up on front-desk computers. A little while later, a 
staffer calls the guest to welcome him or her to the hotel. "People say, 
'How did you know I was here?' They find it really slick," says Hyatt's Mr. 
Sears.

Peachtree Travel
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