Review: Digitalization in the Hotel Industry

In today’s hotel industry, one of the issues that the hotelier faces is the loss or not returned key cards.  The annual cost of these plastic cards are huge numbers when added up at the end of the day and directly affects the budget of the hotel owners continuously.

In the past few years, smartphone applications are quickly gaining popularity amongst some of the biggest hotel franchises across the world. Major franchises including the Marriott Group, Sheraton, Hilton, etc. are all integrating popular features like check-in & check-out, room service, housekeeping and mobile room keys with their local mobile apps. 

Considering some of the benefits of “implementing mobile room keys in hotels” are:

Reduce Costs Instantly: The most obvious benefit of implementing a keyless entry system for hotels is its cost-effectiveness. Mobile apps or keyless entry systems have a single cost when they are initially developed, afterwards, all they require is activation and deactivation. 

Remarkable Guest Experience: One of the main objectives that the hotels are proving is the best unique experience for their stayed guest. With mobile-app technology guests can easily use their mobile apps (WeBee) to complete the check-out, personalize their journey, unlock their rooms (AssaAbloy), pay their bills and check-out with complete control. This vast customization of their experience at the hotel will eventually lead to amazing guest reviews on social platforms, travel blogs and booking websites.

Eco-friendly: The lost room cards are plastic and they produce waste for the environment. However, when we empower mobile phones to open doors instead of cards we have an eco-friendly and sustainable solution. 

Increased Security: Security is one of the hot topics in every field of business. Digital key not only increases the guest satisfaction and give them convenience of skipping the front desk but also decreases the risk of lost or stolen room keys.  When a hotel uses mobile key technology, they assign the digital key directly to each guest and appropriate friends or family.  This procedure will certainly bring an extra layer of security that enables a property to better manage who access to its building.

Recently a phenomenal project has been launched in Zorlu Grand Hotel where WeBee provided the mobile application and Assa Abloy provided the secure hardware with their Ving Card access system having Bluetooth boards. These three businesses have brought live the first keyless entry system project in Turkey.

You can be able to download the Zorlu Grand Hotel mobile application either from Apple Store or Google Android store and explore it.

AppStore   Google Store

As smartphone technology evolves, we can expect much more than just mobile room keys to enhance the guest experience. Mobile devices will deliver a high number of opportunities to reach out to over 6+ billion people, provide faster holiday & room bookings, add more touchpoints for revenue and offer even more personalization for guests.