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Your Phone Could Be the Key to Your Next Hotel Room - Industry News

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Your Phone Could Be the Key to Your Next Hotel Room

Published: 16 August 2010.

Would you be interested in using your phone as a hotel room key? If trials at two Holiday Inn locations in Chicago and Houston go well, it could become a standard option before too long.

USA Today reports that the InterContinental Hotels Group will be testing a system called OpenWays, which sends a unique and encrypted audio code to users’ phones before they arrive to check in. Combined with a text message that informs the guest of his or her room number, the technology could theoretically be used to bypass the guest reception desk altogether — saving both time and hassle for guests and reducing staff overhead for participating hotels.

For now the OpenWays system is available as a smartphone app on the iPhone, BlackBerry and Androidplatforms, but it’s been designed to work with a fundamentally wider range of phones. Beacuse it operates primarily through audio playback, even lower-end feature phones could eventually make use of the system if the trials go well. In terms of security, OpenWays CEO Pascal Metivier says the system is “at least as secure as a keycard”; audio signature becomes obsolete upon check-out and hotel staff can cancel any problematic keys in real time.

The OpenWays trial will begin in June and run for at least two to three months, but could continue much longer. IHG executive Bryson Koehler said of the experiment, “We’re staying very flexible on purpose as we see what the feedback is.”

What do you think: Would you like to use your phone as a hotel key?

Original article by Barb Dybwad from http://mashable.com/2010/05/26/openways-phone-hotel-key/

Reply from: Nick

2:58pm Monday, 16 August 2010

Geez, it's hard enough trying to get your hotel room door open after a few drinks isn't it? Those pesky access cards never seem to work - but could you imagine trying to load a mobile phone app to get you in?? And what happens if your phone goes flat? I wonder if iPhone have an app to help you sleep in the fire-escape.

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