Guestroom Locking System Enables Most Current Cell Phones To Become Keys
Four billion Cell Phones Now Opening Doors to Better Guest Service Thanks to OpenWays
-- Hotels, 10/28/2009 8:46:00 AM
Next month, OpenWays will unveil a new solution that equips the 4 billion cell phones currently in use around the world with a service that allows mobile users to proceed with the fastest and greenest way to check in and to access a hotel room.
OpenWays leverages a contactless interface already on board all cell phones. The company, which has filed several patents, securely delivers a hotel room key over the air to the right cell phone in order to open the right door lock, thus bridging the gap between what hoteliers and travelers want today.
OpenWays will debut November 8 at the International Hotel/Motel & Restaurant Show in Booth No. 3169 at the Jacob K. Javits Convention Center in New York.
Automated check -in and checkout solutions have been of high interests for years in the hospitality industry. Hotel guests have expressed numerous times their desire to avoid the check in process when arriving at a hotel. Such an experience is seen by most as an unnecessary burden. The same is for the check out process. Therefore, the concept of queuing and waiting in line is highly incompatible with the expectation of a pleasant stay.
Several Hotel chains have already engaged with offering cell-phone based check-in/-out solutions to their guests, but none of them has yet found an immediate solution for delivering the room key to the guest phone. This is what OpenWays solved and offers NOW to the benefit of both users and hoteliers:
Ø OpenWays removes the need for a guest to stop at the front desk or at the kiosk when he/she arrives at the hotel, thus streamlining check-in and eliminating the frustration of waiting in lines.
Ø OpenWays contributes to reducing the number of front desk transactions allowing for reducing front desk operating expenses.
Ø OpenWays can also contribute to selling hotel stays at a greater profit margin when the solution is leveraged to the benefit of the chain and property-direct sales channels.
Ø OpenWays allows for better guest service, including features like “change my room” and “extend my stay” all managed on-line through the use of the guest cell phone without having to ever get down to the front desk to get a new key card.
Ø OpenWays offers significant security and operational improvements by managing master keys in an on-line fashion with real time cancelation in case of a loss.
Ø OpenWays eliminates the need for hotels to purchase, issue and dispose of plastic key cards for cell phone users. This not only saves time and labor costs, but it significantly helps the environment.
Ø OpenWays aids in a hotel’s e-marketing efforts by providing a vehicle for continual communications with the guest before, during and after his/her stay. It also helps hotels to deploy value-added mobile applications, including loyalty programs, widgets, Web2Mobile, etc., with automatic hardware and carrier detection allowing for full content compatibility.
OpenWays interfaces with central-reservation systems, property-management systems and the major electronic-locking systems on the market today: The solution works with all new and existing electronic locks or access control systems regardless the card technology being used (magnetic-stripe card, smart card, proximity card, RFID cards, etc).
OpenWays is focused on “credential dematerialization” with over-the-air secured delivery to mobile phones. OpenWays is 100% compatible with any cell phone network technologies (GSM, UMTS, CDMA, 3GCDMA, LTE, WIMAX…) and Mobile OS standards (BlackBerry, Apple iPhone, Symbian, Google Android, JAVA J2ME, MICROSOFT WINDOWS mobile…).
OpenWays will be made available to hotel chains and hotels through a network of integrating partners, including the major electronic lock manufacturers, system integrators, kiosk and CRS/PMS providers.
OpenWays contactless solution is fully interoperable between carriers and can be deployed NOW, very easily and quickly worldwide, without having to wait for other technologies that could take years to reach critical mass like NFC (Near Field Communication). In fact, with the ability to address now 100% of the cell phone users OpenWays is “paving the road to NFC.”
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