Friday, December 30, 2011

INNOVATION topper!!


Metivier emphasized that Open Ways’ technology will always be a choice for hotel guests. The two Holiday Inn hotels that will test the technology, for instance, will install it only in about 20% of hotel-room doors.
“Even if you sign up (for the Open Ways app), you can still decide to use your keycard because the door lock still contains traditional keycard reader,” Metivier told me. “It’s about choice. It’s giving the customer the opportunity to pick what’s best for them.”
The idea is that if you go to the pool and forget your phone – or if your phone runs out of juice, you’ll still be able to go to the front desk to get an old-fashioned keycard.
How it works
The basics: Guests who opt to try “fast check-in” will give the hotel their smartphone number and download Open Ways’ app. Then, two or three days before arrival, they’ll receive a text message containing their room number and a unique and encrypted sound code that they’ll use to unlock their hotel-room door. The code will work once and then reset itself. (To get a visual on how it works, I found this 32-second video posted on Youtube.com.)
One of the ways that Open Ways makes the system attractive to hotel owners is that they upgrade existing hotel-door locks with an additional device that contains a microchip, instead of requiring the hotel owner to invest a completely new locking mechanism. The microchip listens to the audio code that comes from the smartphone and the chip validates the sound, he said.
What happens if my phone is lost or stolen?
Some of you worried that your room number and code will be inside your phone, so if your phone goes missing and you don’t have a password set up on the phone, you might have a security problem. Metivier said that’s not the case. The code is not kept inside the phone but on Open Ways’ servers within a secured network.
Will Open Ways know my credit card information?
No. Open Ways’ servers will know your mobile number, but that’s it, he said. “We’re not carrying any private information from the guest,” Metivier told me.
More hotels will test the technology
While IHG will be the first hotel chain to test the technology, Metivier said that other hotel chains are planning pilot programs, though he declined to identify them.
The technology will work with regular cellphones
Today, Open Ways’ technology works wtih the iPhone, Blackberry and Android, but Metivier said they hope to add more phones – including regular cellphones that can take text messages – in the future. “A lot of people are interested in bypassing the front desk,” he said.
Source: travel.usatoday.com

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