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Many hotel chains are racing to replace plastic room keys with digital options, including Apple Wallet and Google Wallet apps. Plastic hotel key cards have had a rough past few years. During the pandemic, touch is a no-no, so the touchless trend has accelerated. Cybersecurity concerns are also growing about hotel key technology. Earlier this year, researchers found that The loophole of hotel plastic keys That could make up to three million keys easy targets for hackers and take years to fix.
Cybersecurity and safety concerns have prompted many hotel chains to accelerate plans to revamp hotel room door locks. While major U.S. hotel chains have had digital key features for years, Google Wallet and Apple Wallet have joined the fray, offering hotels the ability to save guests’ room keys to their wallets so they can access their rooms simply by tapping the back of their phone against a reader near the door handle.
Hilton Hotels has its own Honors app, which allows guests to check in and use their room keys from their smartphones. At the 119-room Harpers Inn in Franklin, Tennessee, a Hilton property, guests can check in digitally and store their keys in the Google or Apple Wallet apps.
“The benefit of digital check-in is that your phone is the key,” said Kimberly Elder, director of sales at Harpers Hotels, adding that many guests still prefer plastic key cards.
Digitalization is the next wave in hotel room door technology, said Eli Fuchs, regional director of operations for Valor Hospitality Partners, which owns Hilton and Holiday Inn Express.
“The traditional hotel room key is becoming obsolete,” Fox said.
However, some security experts warn that even the newer locking methods are not foolproof.
“Keyless systems have the potential to introduce entirely new threat vectors to hotel security operations,” said Lee Clark, cyber threat intelligence production manager at the Retail and Hospitality Information Sharing and Analysis Center (RH-ISAC).
While Clark said these threats can be mitigated through security control policies and configurations such as multi-factor authentication (MFA), these introduce additional steps that annoyed guests may not always be willing to go through.
Clark said it’s unlikely that all hotels will replace all key cards with digital keys anytime soon because some guests may prefer key cards or may not have personal devices that are compatible with digital lock systems, and the costs are higher.
“Transitioning to digital and keyless lock systems incurs significant costs in terms of equipment, installation, maintenance and security,” Clark said.
Hotel chains begin requiring digital key systems
And human habits get in the way, too.
For example, data from J.D. Power’s hotel research shows that only 14% of guests staying at branded hotels use a digital key during their stay. Even guests who download the brand’s app to their phone use a plastic key card.
According to JD Power, among guests who have a hotel company/brand app, 30% use digital keys and 70% use In most cases these are plastic cards.
On the other hand, many hotels do not install digital entry locks at all.
“Some of the larger hotel chains, whose apps are likely to support digital keys, are beginning to require franchise owners to install new door locks as part of updating their brand standards,” said Andrea Stokes, head of hospitality at JD Power.
While customers have been slow to embrace digital options, J.D. Power data does show that keyless customers feel more secure than those using plastic cards.
“Guests who used ‘Digital Key’ rated the hotel’s security significantly more positively than guests who did not use it,” Stokes said.
Chad Spensky, CEO of Allthenticate, a company that develops smartphone access capabilities and credential management, compared plastic key cards to passwords, which cybersecurity experts consider low-tech and outdated.
“We still use passwords despite obvious security vulnerabilities and poor user experience. Likewise, key cards are likely to continue to exist,” Spinsky said.
The real advantage of digital cards, he said, is not security but convenience.
“While these cards are no more secure than plastic cards, the user experience is much better,” Spinsky said. If the choice is between a bunch of plastic cards and a smartphone, “the phone is the clear winner.”
Consumer convenience factors are driving hotel chains toward digital keys. While digital keys offer an additional attack surface, they also allow for quick course corrections.
Spensky said one of the biggest problems with key cards is that when vulnerabilities are discovered, there is no easy way to patch them. “With a smartphone, patches can be pushed out wirelessly almost instantly,” he said.
Don’t underestimate plastic key cards
Mohammed Erdem, The director and professor of the resort, gaming and golf management department at the William F. Harrah College of Hospitality Management at the University of Las Vegas warned that no system is foolproof and people should not let digital portals give them a false sense of security.
“Everything can be hacked, everything can be breached,” Erdem said. “As long as someone has the intent to hack, it will happen.”
Plastic key cards aren’t going away just yet, Erdem said. There are magnetic key cards that need to be swiped, and newer radio frequency identification (RFID) cards that only require close contact or can be loaded onto a phone. Erdem said RFID technology is constantly improving, making plastic keys more versatile.
“RFID is not obsolete,” Erdem said, adding that it allows people who don’t want to interact as much to download an app, get a key, activate it, and enter the room.
“Hotels will push mobile apps for sustainability and cost reasons,” Erdem said, but added that some people will always prefer physical plastic keys. The advantage of digital versions of plastic keys, he said, is human nature. “People forget their wallets, they forget their IDs, but they don’t forget their phones.”
But in Las Vegas, where people routinely return to their hotel rooms with winnings from the blackjack tables and slot machines, there’s an old-fashioned, low-tech option that can make the open-door discussion moot.
“There is always a safe in the room and if guests have valuables they should use the safe,” Erdem said.
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