General Manager Alex Attia at The Charles in Cambridge, Massachusetts, is in the process of implementing a keyless guestroom lock system for guest to securely access their rooms via smart phones. With so many brands announcing their intentions to go keyless, hearing about Attia’s experience proves valuable for hoteliers considering how to react to this trend.
Attia recently spoke to HOTELS about the process, sharing his experiences and discussing the speed bumps his team has negotiated along the way at the iconic 295-room hotel a stone’s throw from Harvard University.
HOTELS: How is the process going to date?
Alex Attia: They keyless system is not live yet but it is in place, and we installed it for two reasons. One, which was the major reason, was that this hotel was one of the first hotels that installed the Marlock key system, which is a hard key that is computerized, but we weren’t able to upgrade it. There was no option, and I really personally loved the system and the feeling that we were one of the few hotels that still have that hard metal key. You can feel more secure and in charge of your room.
So we really kept the Marlock system going as long as we could. We made sure that we had enough keys and I would buy virtually 10,000 keys at a time so I wouldn’t run out of them. You’d get to a point that the parts were hard to find and, of course, the risk of the computer system going down became too great.
Second, with all the challenges that we have, in general, with security and safety and protecting our guests, we started looking for another system that’s going to offer the most security first, and then hopefully offers also some form of updated technology that will separate us from the rest.
H: What have been the challenges with implementation?
AA: This key system obviously is important to us, and the challenge right now is the near-field communication (NFC). Some of the smartphones don’t have it yet. So once that’s available, this system is actually ready to go. We can just switch it on. Right now, as far as we know there is only one phone that has this capability… Right now placing the plastic key card in front of the lock still opens the door.
H: So the lock is ready to go once you overcome the NFC issue. What were the other challenges?
AA: The biggest challenge once we decided on the supplier was to make sure that we had very strong Wi-Fi capability in the building, so we made sure we had a couple of reception points on the floors. We also wanted to make sure that we didn’t have to replace the doors for the new locks. They were able to just mold it, if you will, to fit where the old lock was on the door and it worked out really beautifully for us. The installation process was actually pretty seamless. We did it one floor at a time and virtually they did one floor a day. They took a floor in the morning at 9 a.m. and we had it back at 4 p.m.
H: What other bugs had to be worked out?
AA: The only thing was if you checked into the hotel for two days and you decided to extend for one day, you had to come down to get your key reprogrammed, if you will.
H: What sort of guest training is involved?
AA: Explaining to the guests that you shouldn’t be too far away from the lock, but they can also tap it if they want, and that’s really the only training that we have to do. From our staff’s standpoint, they were accustomed to making the key. Even with the Marlock, you had to put the key in the coder, and we still have to put this plastic key on the encoder to get the code and then you give it to the guest. So it really is not a different process for our team. So the transition actually for our team is virtually seamless.
H: What is the ROI?
AA: These Marlock keys are a dollar each, and it will be a nice savings, and that’s really the ROI. Eventually you’re spending US$20,000 a year on keys. If you could save half of that because not everybody is going to say, ‘I’ll use my phone.’
H: What did the system cost for you to install?
AA: It cost us US$200,000 all in. That’s about US$75,000 for the rooms at US$250 per lock, US$50,000 to upgrade the Wi-Fi system and US$75,000 for parts. This is a system that will last 25 to 30 years because it’s a system that can be upgraded to whatever comes next.
H: Do you think it’s going to be something that it will be a marketing opportunity or is it just really a security thing?
AA: Even in security, you’ll gain some time for your team to do other things instead of going up and down to replace keys. And, making people feel really safe is the best investment that you can make.
H: What are the takeaways from your experience so far for hoteliers?
AA: In addition to the safety and security, the efficiency and the speed because we can process the check-in time in 30 seconds instead of a minute. This will also allow us to get to the paperless process. Guests don’t have to sign anymore because we connected with them directly and they have documentation on their phone for check-in and check-out times. That will also ensure that we will immediately deliver a bill via email. When guest check-out our computer is going to disconnect that entry code and send a copy of the bill automatically.
H: What are the other advantages of the system?
AA: One key can get the housekeeping team in wherever we allow them to get in and we can do it very easily because we have hot spots throughout the building so if the housekeeper is on the 10th floor, they don’t have to go back to the first floor to get a new key. They can go to the hot spot and if they call us and say they need to access, they can just go to the hot spot to update that key because we change it in the computer.