The dream of mobile check-in and room keys was always to provide a more streamlined guest experience at hotels, and Hyatt Hotels Corp. officials believe they're getting ever closer to that ideal with the rollout of new technology that enables room keys to be stored and used on Apple devices.
Hyatt officials announced last week guests can now unlock guests rooms via Apple Wallet using iPhones and Apple Watches starting at six properties — Andaz Maui at Wailea Resort, Hyatt Centric Key West Resort & Spa, Hyatt House Chicago/West Loop-Fulton Market, Hyatt House Dallas/Richardson, Hyatt Place Fremont/Silicon Valley and Hyatt Regency Long Beach — with expectations of a wide-scale implementation across their portfolio of brands at some point in 2022.
Julia Vander Ploeg, Hyatt's senior vice president and global head of digital and technology, said the company's goal is to make unlocking guestrooms and other areas of the hotel "frictionless," in collaboration with Apple.
"One of the pieces of feedback that we often hear [from guests] is to make the process of their stay as seamless and as consumer-friendly as possible," she said. "And what we heard in Apple's vision to create a more seamless experience with access through Apple Wallet was one that will fit very nicely with our vision to make things easier for our guests and worldwide members."
Vander Ploeg said the current setup using the World of Hyatt app, or similar hotel brand apps at other hotels, can take 15 seconds or so to work even under ideal circumstances, which is significantly longer than just using a traditional keycard.
She expects the ease and simplicity of the Apple Watch experience to be a "tipping point" in consumer adoption of mobile keys.
"It literally takes that process that was 15 seconds down to one or two, and that's what consumers are used to doing" with mobile boarding passes while flying, Vander Ploeg said. "That's very commonplace now, and we see a very similar evolution happening with respect to how you gain entry to secure areas during a hotel stay."
The room key in the digital wallet will also automatically update as the guest is checked in and details of the stay change, like extending a stay, the company said in its announcement. Vander Ploeg said ease of use is also a big reason for the staggered rollout of the technology to avoid any unforeseen hiccups.
"We have a phrase at Hyatt. We call it 'Nail it before we scale it,' and we really want to nail that experience and then scale as quickly as we can," she said, adding the properties selected for the pilot were chosen to try out the technology at "very different properties and different brands" with "a number of use cases."
Vander Ploeg could not provide a specific timetable for the portfolio-wide rollout, but did say it would be expedited by the fact the change can be made without switching out existing locks. She said digital wallet room keys should work with a firmware update, and that helped sell the change to owners.
"We stay very close to and listen very carefully to owners, and they're excited about what this will mean in terms of enhancing the value of our brands and World of Hyatt membership," she said.
She said the company also feels comfortable the adoption doesn't add any new security concerns, and the new feature "takes advantage of all the privacy and security built into iPhone and Apple Watch."
"Every room key in Apple Wallet is unique to that World of Hyatt guest, and when a World of Hyatt guest uses a room key with Apple Wallet, that data is never shared with Apple or stored on their servers," she said. "So it's probably taking advantage of some of the most secure elements of that ecosystem."
She said Hyatt sees the use of technology to create more frictionless stays as a long-term competitive advantage for the company. It's also working to deploy other improvements, such as "intelligent messaging technology" and a new "clean, consistent and contactless experience."
"I think the combination of these things, what we want to be known for is not just being on the leading edge of technology innovation, but rather looking at what experiences really benefit our members and our guests and our owner. So, we look very closely at what we're hearing in terms of what's important versus just, you know, fancy technology for technology's sake," she said.
What's less certain is when the company might expand beyond the Apple ecosystem to offer similar functionality to guests with other types of smartphones.
"We don't have details on further technology integration plans to share at this time," she said. "We continue to prioritize listening to guests and members, and we're always identifying opportunities to further elevate the guest experience and offer more digital solutions. So we're definitely looking at that. When we look at the operating system that the majority of our members are on, Apple was logical in terms of where we would start, so that's where we started."