Many hotel chains are trying to replace plastic room keys with digital alternatives, including the Apple Wallet and Google Wallet apps. Plastic hotel key cards have had a rough few years. During the pandemic, touch was off-limits, accelerating the trend toward touchless cards. And cybersecurity concerns surrounding hotel key technology have risen. Earlier this year, researchers discovered a vulnerability in plastic hotel keys that could make up to three million keys easy prey for hackers and would take years to fix.
Cybersecurity and safety concerns have prompted many hotel chains to accelerate their plans to upgrade the door locks in hotel rooms. While major U.S. chains have had the digital key capability for years, Google Wallet and Apple Wallet are jumping the gun, offering hotels the ability to store guests' room keys in their wallets, allowing them to enter their rooms by simply holding the back of their phone to a reader near the doorknob.
Hilton Hotels has the Honors app, which allows guests to check in using their smartphone and use a room key. The 119-room Harpeth Hotel in Franklin, Tennessee, is a Hilton property, and guests can check in digitally and save keys to their Google or Apple Wallet app.
“The benefit of digital check-in is that your phone is the key,” said Kimberly Elder, sales manager at Harpeth Hotel, adding that many guests still preferred the plastic key cards.
Eli Fuchs, regional director of operations at Valor Hospitality Partners, whose portfolio includes Hilton and Holiday Inn Express hotels, says digitization is the next trend in hotel room door technology.
“Conventional hotel room keys are on the verge of extinction,” says Fuchs.
However, some security experts point out that even the newer locking methods are not foolproof.
“Keyless systems can introduce entirely new threat vectors for hotel security departments,” says Lee Clark, cyber threat intelligence production manager at the Retail and Hospitality Information Sharing and Analysis Center (RH-ISAC).
While Clark says these threats can be mitigated through security control policies and configurations, such as multi-factor authentication (MFA), they add extra steps that stressed-out guests may not always want to skip.
Clark believes it is unlikely that hotels will replace all key cards with digital keys any time soon. This is partly because some guests prefer a key card or do not have a personal device compatible with digital locking systems, and partly because of the high costs.
“The move to digital and keyless locking systems entails significant costs for equipment, installation, maintenance and security,” Clark said.
Hotel chains now require digital key systems
And human habits also often get in the way.
For example, data from JD Power's hotel research found that only 14% of all guests at branded hotels used digital keys during their hotel stay. Even guests who had downloaded the brand's app on their phone used the plastic key card.
According to JD Power data, 30% of guests who have the hotel company/brand’s app use a digital key and 70% use a mostly plastic card.
On the other hand, many hotels simply do not have locks installed that allow digital access.
“Several major hotel chains, whose apps are most likely to support digital keys, are increasingly requiring hotel franchisees to install new door locks as part of updated brand standards,” said Andrea Stokes, head of the hospitality practice at JD Power.
Although customers have been slow to adopt digital options, JD Power data shows that customers without keys feel more secure than customers who use plastic cards.
“Guests who use a 'digital key' rate the hotel's security significantly more positively than guests who do not use digital keys,” Stokes said.
Chad Spensky, CEO of Allthenticate, which develops smartphone access features and credential management, compares the plastic keycard to passwords, which cybersecurity experts consider low-tech and outdated.
“We all still use passwords, despite the glaring security flaws and cumbersome user experience. And key cards are also likely to continue to exist,” Spensky said.
He says the real promise of digital cards lies less in security than in ease of use.
“The card implementations may not be more secure than their plastic counterparts, but their user experience is far better,” Spensky said. If you have the choice between lugging around a bunch of plastic cards or having your smartphone, “the phone is the clear winner.”
The convenience factor for the consumer is driving hotel chains to use digital keys. While digital keys provide an additional attack surface, they also allow for quick course correction.
One of the biggest problems with key cards, Spensky said, is that once a vulnerability is discovered, there is no easy way to fix it. “With smartphones, patches can be deployed almost instantly over the air,” he said.
Do not count out the plastic key card yet
Mehmet Erdem, Professor and head of the Department of Resort, Gaming and Golf Management at the William F. Harrah College of Hospitality at the University of Las Vegas warns that no system is foolproof and people should not be lulled into a false sense of security by having digital access.
“Everything can be hacked, everything can be breached,” Erdem said. “If someone has the intention to hack something, it will happen.”
Erdem says plastic key cards shouldn't be phased out just yet. There are magnetic key cards that you swipe and newer RFID (radio frequency identification) cards that you just hold near the key or that you can load onto a phone. Erdem says RFID technology is getting better, making plastic keys more versatile.
“RFID is not obsolete,” Erdem said, adding that it allows people who want less interaction to download the app, get the key, activate it and go into the room.
“For sustainability and cost reasons, hotels will go with mobile apps,” Erdem said, but added that some people will always prefer the physical plastic key. The advantage of the digital version of a plastic key is human nature, he said. “People forget their wallet, people forget their ID, but they don't forget their phone.”
But in Las Vegas, where people regularly return to their hotel rooms with winnings from the blackjack tables and slot machines, there is an old-fashioned, low-tech solution that makes the door argument obsolete.
“There is always a safe in the room. Guests should use it if they have something very valuable,” said Erdem.
Comments are closed.