Holiday Inn Testing Smartphones To Unlock Guest Rooms
Written by Evan SchumanAs retailers evaluate practical ways to use mobile payments in-store, they have a new pioneer ally: Holiday Inn. The hotel chain is trialing a program at two Holiday Inns—in Chicago and Houston—where visitors are allowed to use their own smartphones to open their rooms. Hotel guests go to the Web and download an app the chain calls Open Ways. “Guests ultimately will call up the confirmation E-mail on their smartphone and hold it up to a sensor on the door to unlock it,” a USA Today story said.
The advantages are the elimination of going to the front desk to pick up and return the key, plus the convenience of not having to carry anything else. This trial could be key—pun not intended—to helping retailers eventually use the smartphones for authentication and payment. The more consumers get used to the idea of phones for authentication, but not necessarily for payment (door access at a hotel, to borrow books at the local library, to access a private gym, to pick up a package at the Post Office, etc.), the easier it will be to get them to use the phones for payment.
-Marc
May 27th, 2010 at 8:46 am
I find this curious. While the number of cell phone users in the United States is estimated to be about 91% of the population, only about 17% (in 2009) in the U.S. are “smart phones”. And even if all cell phones migrate to be smart phones, not all the population will have one. So two systems of entry will be needed where only one in required currently. Seems to be an added expense with little or no ROI.
July 1st, 2010 at 12:19 pm
The ROI will come over time given the expense of replacing plastic cards. The real gotcha is that the simple card key is just that – simple. A cool concept but in the end, widespread use is probably not attainable – hence a novelty.