REPORT FROM THE U.S.—Until recently, hotel owners looking to spruce up the guestroom experience at their properties would go first to the television, beds and Internet bandwidth, while door locks took a back seat.
With the introduction and growing popularity of radio-frequency identification-based technology, hotel owners can deliver the ‘wow’ affect before the guest even sees the room while at the same time reducing maintenance calls and costs, too. With RFID door locks, key cards are programmed and used by placing them in proximity of a digital device rather than swiping them through a reader. During programming and use, the card doesn’t need to come in physical contact with any device.
RFID locks are catching on fast, and HotelNewsNow.com caught up with three hotel technology engineers who recently chose to install RFID locks at their properties to ask them about the decision-making process and the results.
Rick Creviston is chief engineer for the 910-room Hyatt Regency St. Louis at The Arch, which installed RFID door locks in January. John Lowes is executive director of guest technology for MGM Resorts International, which implemented a lock system in 5,900 Rooms at CityCenter in Las Vegas. And Nigel Buchanan is operations director for Yotel.
For all three hoteliers, the biggest concerns were guest experience and lock reliability. As they pondered their options, RFID stood out for the following reasons:
Less maintenance
One of the major advantages a RFID locking system has over a magstripe system is the lifespan of the keycards. A typical magstripe keycard has only a finite number of uses before it simply stops working. RFID cards—because the technology is digital rather than magnetic and requires no physical contact—last significantly longer.
“We looked at it from a guest perspective. With RFID, demagnification doesn’t exist,” Lowes said. “No more making room calls for the demagnification of the card.”
However, although the cost of RFID locking hardware has decreased to very near the cost of a magstripe system, the longevity of RFID keycards significantly increases the cost of producing the actual cards.
“I can tell you the difference in acquisition cost for RFID and magstripe—there is no longer any price differential,” Lowes said. “From an acquisition cost standpoint, it is purely cost neutral. What it boils down to is you have to weigh the operational costs.”
Creviston said RFID technology has gotten better and cheaper over the years. He estimated magstripe cards cost about 6 cents to 7 cents each to produce while RFID cards cost between 55 cents and US$1 each.
“I can’t really say it will be down to 25 cents a key, but the technology seems to be getting cheaper, he said. “At least you hope as more and more hotels install them the cheaper they can do it.”
And RFID cards supposedly have an “indefinite lifespan,” Lowes said. One reason for the extended lifespan is that guests (specifically children) can’t shove debris into the lock readers on the guestroom doors.
“Probably more so than the locks themselves is the lifespan of the encoders, Creviston said. “It’s a proximity device so there are no moving parts. We felt that increased reliability of your key being programmed correctly the first time.”
Creviston said in the first couple months after the install there were occasional guest failures, but now there are very few. He attributed the failures to guests who would wave the cards across the reader rather than just holding it in close proximity.
“The best feedback is no feedback,” Buchanan added. “No one wants there to be an issue with a lock, particularly in a large hotel such as (Yotel New York) with over 600 keys.”
Buchanan said the biggest plus to installing RFID locks is the ease of auditing activity on the locks.
“It’s always great operationally to know when there are issues that you can see who has accessed the lock—that helps when needing to make smart, quick decisions,” he said.
Future-proof
When choosing which locks to install, the hoteliers brought out their crystal ball and came to the conclusion that RFID door locks will more compatible with future technologies. The door locks already can be networked to other in-room technologies and monitoring can be centralized. And the hoteliers are expecting the day when guests can enter the room via RFID technology embedded into their smartphone.
“Unfortunately only about 15% of smartphones are shipped with the RFID features, and most of those aren’t in the U.S.,” Lowes said. “RFID is not currently prevalent in U.S., but maybe with the next evolution of the Apple iPhone …”
“RFID seems to be the lock technology of the future,” Creviston added. “We really felt like there would be more RFID applications coming so we would be well-suited down the road.”
For example, he said, a credit card may easily become the key to a guest’s room.
‘Wow’ factor
When MGM’s CityCenter went live in late 2009, RFID technology was extremely progressive. One of the primary objectives for technology engineers at CityCenter was to look at the technology enterprise as a whole and determine what would be cutting edge beyond the property opening.
“RFID was one of those technologies we were pretty committed to,” Lowes said. “It offers a lot of opportunity.”
He said guests have provided the most feedback on what MGM calls the “entry scene,” in which the locks communicate when a guest enters their room for the first time to turn on music and lights and open the blinds.
“Basically the room greets the guests,” Lowes said. “In the long term, we hope to do more things like set the room up differently for different people. For instance, when a room attendant would open the door all the lights would turn on and the drapes would open (for safety and ease of cleaning), and when they close the door all of those things would turn off.”
Creviston weighed the future against the increased key cost. “We looked at our situation and said, ‘If we invest into magstripe at this time we’ll be investing into yesterday’s technology,’” he said.