Stephen Bodnar, CEO, OpenKeyStephen Bodnar, CEO
Keycards have long been a standard in the hotel industry, but their limitations are increasingly becoming prominent in today’s experience-driven economy. The costs of producing and replacing keycards can be substantial, reaching hundreds of dollars per month on average and impacting the hotel’s operational costs. Moreover, keycards frequently go unreturned by guests, becoming single-use items that add to the unnecessary plastic waste generation issue, exacerbating environmental challenges.

The solution lies in embracing digitalization through technologies like OpenKey’s Digital Key solution. It can help hotels bid adieu to all the inconvenience caused by traditional keycards and offer numerous benefits to both guests and hotel staff, from hotel cost efficiency to guest satisfaction and environmental impact.

With OpenKey, hotels can embrace a fully digitalized and contactless guest experience. Guests can pre-register, check-in, and checkout using their mobile devices and proceed directly to their rooms without waiting at the front desk. This not only streamlines the check-in process and enables guests to settle in faster, but it also frees up front desk staff to attend to other important tasks.

Hotels can efficiently manage the provision of digital keys through OpenKey’s front desk system app, HOST, allowing them to easily issue and revoke keys as needed. It can be used as a stand-alone system for issuing digital keys or integrated with the hotel’s existing property management systems (PMS) for automated key delivery.

“Our innovative approach aligns with the growing travel trends where guests prefer the convenience of using their mobile devices for various tasks. Much like today’s flight experiences, where everything from booking to check-in and pre-ordering in-flight meals is done through smartphones, our solution aims to bring the same level of ease and comfort to the hospitality industry,” says Stephen Bodnar, CEO of OpenKey.

Its exceptional interoperability further sets it apart. OpenKey offers a digital key solution that can be used by independent hotel properties through OpenKey’s native app. The app can also be private-labeled to suit the branding requirements of luxury independent properties. Many hotels can even choose to add digital key capabilities to their existing guest engagement app with OpenKey’s software development kit (SDK). This range of flexibility makes it an excellent choice for hotels, from independent properties to luxury resorts, looking to jump on the digitalization bandwagon and streamline operations.

This seamless transition to a digitalized process has not only improved cost-effectiveness and operational efficiency for the hotels but also led to enhanced guest satisfaction. Many hotels have completely digitalized and optimized their operations with OpenKey, providing a convenient and consistent guest experience.

With openkey, hotels can embrace a fully digitalized and contactless guest experience. guests can preregister, check-in, and check-out using their mobile devices and proceed directly to their rooms without waiting in line at the front desk

OpenKey has built a state-of-the-art testing lab to ensure the reliability of its digital key solution. The lab features an impressive setup that includes dozens of locks and lock servers, numerous mobile devices, and an operating system. OpenKey utilizes a range of robotic and software automation tools to test a variety of combinations 24/7. This thorough approach enables OpenKey to identify and address potential issues across the complex combination of lock servers, locks, PMS, mobile device operating systems, and integrations with third-party applications, ensuring that its digital key technology runs smoothly and is consistently reliable.

For example, OpenKey automated testing rails helped to detect an issue caused by a major mobile operating system update in 2022 that led to failures on a specific subset of mobile devices. This early detection allowed OpenKey’s partners to address the issue sooner than they would have been able to otherwise.

These instances reinforce the idea why OpenKey’s Digital Key solution is the most reliable in the hospitality industry. In a post- COVID world, where the need for contactless solutions has become more critical than ever before, its innovative solution provides a practical and effective way to future-proof the digital and contactless guest experience and improve operational efficiency.