Tag: Hotel Key Cards
View All TagsHotel Woes / Hotel Key Cards / Manhattan Hotel / New Year's Eve Hotels / → All Tags
Gramercy Park Hotel Jumps On The Malfunctioning Key Card Trend
Woah, we thought one New Year's Eve hotel lockout was bad enough, but this second one is making us super glad we stayed home on Saturday night. And really, the timing couldn't be worse for Gramercy Park Hotel, who narrowly avoided a complete catastrophe in October with the whole plummeting elevator business. Just as they were starting to win back our confidence, their key card system goes and crashes. At midnight. Leaving guests stranded in the hallways for seven hours.
The NY Post reports that 200 guests were shut out on New Year's Eve right after midnight when all of their key cards stopped working. And though the Marriott Denver Tech Center managed to address a similar issue (in that instance, with over 3,000 guests) in under four hours, GPH apparently struggled from around midnight until 7am, having to individually reset each guest's key for the room they'd already checked into.
Hotel Woes / Tech Hotels / Marriott Hotels / Denver Hotels / Hotel Key Cards / Hotel Parties / New Year's Eve Hotels / → All Tags
New Year's Eve at Marriott Denver Tech Center Ends In Major Technology Fail
Of all the New Year's Eve parties that took place in hotels on Saturday night, this might be the most action-packed one we've heard about so far. Spread out across two neighboring hotels, the Hyatt Denver Tech Center's "White Rose Gala" and the Marriott Denver Tech Center's "Champagne Hotel" attracted thousands of midnight revelers. And for a while, it was smooth, champagne-fueled sailing.
Until midnight struck, and over 3,000 inebriated Marriott guests tried heading back to their rooms—only to discover they were all locked out! According to MSNBC, a computer error apparently crashed the hotel's entire key card database, and though pretty much everyone was drunk as a bicycle, and ready to collapse into their beds, they all had to wait until 3am to be let back into their rooms.
Hotel Key Cards / Celebrity Scoop / Kim Kardashian / Viva Vegas / Las Vegas Hotels / Hotel Shopping / The Kardashians / → All Tags
Just Call Her Kim 'Key Kard'-ashian
No surprise here: professional egomaniac Kim Kardashian, who recently expressed a desire to open her own hotel in Dubai (and was swiftly shot down by the WSJ), is absolutely smitten with a particular keycard in Vegas. Why? Because it has her face on it.
Back in August, when The Mirage announced the opening of Kardashian Khaos, some gave it the thumbs up, and just as many outright disowned the hotel. Kinda like when that petition was circulated to cancel all Kardashian programming on the E! network. But unlike TV, which can always be shut off, a hotel takeover is slightly more cataclysmic. And when it gets to the point that you can't even enter your room without seeing their faces, that's surely grounds for hotel boycotting.
For a twitpic of the key card, see below!
Hotel Contests / Hotel Key Cards / Hotel News / SpringHill Suites / Hotel Design / Hotel Art / → All Tags
SpringHill Suites is Searching for a Room Key Designer
Have you ever looked through our collection of hotel key cards and said, "I can do that!"? Well, now here's your chance.
SpringHill Suites from Marriott Hotels is searching for room key designers with their National Key Card Contest where the winning designer will have their artwork featured on the hotels' room keys in 2012. There's about 300 SpringHill Suites hotels in all, giving the designer a hefty amount of exposure.
"Design and style is the core element of SpringHill Suites," said Callette Nielse, vice president and global brand manager for SpringHill Suites. "Extending the invitation to creative minds nationwide allows us to get inspired and thereby continue to translate that great energy into forming a unique experience for our guests."
SpringHill Suites is so serious about art that this month, more than 30 hotels will transform their lobbies into art galleries for an evening called ArtNight which will feature the work of local artists, galleries and art students.
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The Key Card at The Portola Hotel and Spa Will Melt Your Heart
We got a hotel key card that's so cute, we want to keep it in our wallet and bust it out and show people as if it were a photo of our kid. The Portola Hotel & Spa in Monterey features a cuddly looking sea otter peeking his furry head out of the water on its key card.
You could mistake the front of the plastic card as a ticket to the Monterey Bay Aquarium, but the back of it has the hotel's name and info. Unfortunately, the adorable card doesn't double as a pass to get you into the aquarium, the big thing to see in this coastal city.
Hotel Technology / Andaz Hotels / Hotel Key Cards / Loyalty Program News / Hyatt Gold Passport / → All Tags
At Andaz in California, Your Gold Passport Card is Also Your Room Key
Your Gold Passport will give you a ticket to ride, er, sleep in this bed.
We keep wondering when keyless hotel rooms are going to take off but judging from this recent WSJ article, the future is a long ways off as guests haven't grasped the technology very well and hotels are still concerned about security and privacy.
Yet there is a new development on the hotel key card scene from Andaz Hotels. Both the Andaz San Diego and the Andaz West Hollywood (above) are testing a new program that allows Gold Passport Members to use their loyalty card as their hotel room key. It sounds very similar to what Starwood's SPG has been doing with their Aloft Smart Check-in.
Hotel Music / Morgans Hotel Group / Hotel Fun / Hotel Key Cards / Hotel Technology / Geek Hotels / → All Tags
Morgans Hotels Will Spin You Right Round, Baby, With RCRD LBL Playlists
Anonymous techno hotel lobby music is soo 2006 which is why we're relieved to hear that Morgans Hotel Group is going a different route with their hotel music offerings for guests.
The boutique hotel collection has partnered with RCRD LBL, a free music download site featuring songs from marquee and emerging artists, to create custom playlists for each Morgans hotel. These playlists will be available on the in-room iPads, as well as on the Morgans Tumblr and website.
You have to enter in your email address (and thus sign up to receive the RCRD LBL newsletter) to receive the songs but once you do, you can access every playlist for every Morgans hotel, totally free.
Hyatt Hotels / Movie Set Hotels / Morgan Spurlock / Hotel Ads / Hotel News / Hotel Key Cards / → All Tags
This is Why Morgan Spurlock is on the Key Cards at Hyatt Hotels Right Now
If you've ever wondered about the business of product placement in movies--like why a character drinks Pepsi instead of Coke or eats Lays potato chips instead of Doritos--then Morgan Spurlock's new documentary, The Greatest Movie Ever Sold is a must-see.
And if you're a hotel geek or a Hyatt Hotels fan gurl or boy, this movie will also show you the perks of being Diamond level of Hyatt's Gold Passport program.
POM Wonderful Presents: The Greatest Movie Ever Sold is all about the business of product placement, advertising and marketing and the movie's attention-grabbing hook is that it was entirely funded by product placement, advertising and marketing.
Hyatt Hotels was actually a key sponsor of the movie having invested about $700,000 in the film. But Stacey Snyder, Hyatt's director of marketing, told HotelChatter that Spurlock was already a fan of Hyatts before he started making this movie.
"He didn't approach any brands that he didn't have any passion for himself," she said.
Hotel Art / Hotel Key Cards / Le Meridien Hotels / → All Tags
Another Reason to Collect Hotel Key Cards: Le Meridien's Unlock Art Program
We're already big fans of Hotel Art here at HotelChatter but now Le Meridien Hotels are giving us a way to explore our appreciate for art a bit further with their UNLOCK Art program.
Several Le Meridien hotels have partnered up with local contemporary art institutions and exhibitions to offer guests complimentary access simply by using their hotel key cards. Really, that's it. You present your key card at the museum and voila, you're in.
The program is currrently in place at the Le Meridien San Francisco which gives access to the Yerba Buena Centre for the Arts as well as the Le Meridien Philadelphia (The Institute of Contemporary Art in Philadelphia), the Le Meridien Nice (The MAMAC in Nice) and the Le Meridien London with access to the Tate, along with a few other Le Meridiens worldwide.
Yet Le Meridien can't have its guests presenting boring old key cards at these art institutions. No, no, no. Instead Le Meridien's Global Cultural Curator (actual job title), Jérôme Sans, handpicks artists to design the special key cards.
Hotel Technology / Keyless Hotel Rooms / Hotel Key Cards / Stockholm Hotels / Clarion Hotels / → All Tags
Stockholm's Clarion Hotel is Now Testing Keyless Hotel Rooms
It seems as if Holiday Inn isn't the only hotel to begin testing keyless hotel rooms.
The Clarion Hotel in Stockholm has also started to replace hotel room keys with guests' mobile phones. But while Holiday Inn uses Open Ways technology, whose software guests download to their phones, the Clarion is using Near Field Communication technology so that guests can simply hold up their phone to the room door to open it.
The technology also lets guests check-in before arriving at the hotel and to check-out remotely. And the hotel hopes the keyless technology will actually help with guest saftey.
If a mobile phone is lost, the access credentials can be revoked remotely and then reissued. This makes it impossible for unauthorized people to use a lost or stolen NFC mobile phone.
Hotel Technology / Keyless Hotel Rooms / IHG Hotels / Smartphone Check-Ins / Hotel Key Cards / → All Tags
IHG's New Smartphone Check-In Eliminates the Need for a Keycard
Way back in 2006, before the advent of the iPhone, the Droid and whatever the latest model of the Blackberry is, Marriott Hotels announced they would be testing a smartphone check-in in which guests could not-so-simply check into a Marriott hotel provided they had the right type of smartphone and had already downloaded the Marriott hotel's software.
Well, in the year 2010, Intercontinental Hotel Group is now testing a smartphone check-in that will allow you to actually open your hotel room, thus eliminating the need for a keycard completely.
According to USA Today, IHG will test the high-tech check-in next month at two Holiday Inns--one in Chicago and one in Houston. You will still have to download the technology's software from Open Ways and will also have to register to be one of the testers. But once you have that down, the next time you check into your hotel simply hold your smartphone up to a sensor on the door and voila! You're in the room.
Hotel Technology / Hotel Key Cards / Aloft Hotels / Hotel News / → All Tags
Aloft Announces New Smart Check-In Program
We're not a huge fan of the Aloft Hotel experience but we are intrigued by the announcement today that Aloft Hotels will be using a new check-in service that allows guest to bypass the front desk and head directly to their rooms.
Here's how the press release describes the new Smart Check-In:
Through the pilot, currently being tested at the Aloft hotel in Lexington, MA, select Starwood Preferred Guest® members who opt to participate in the program, which runs on radio frequency identification (RFID) technology, receive an enhanced SPG / Aloft-branded RFID keycard.
On the day of a planned stay, a text message is sent to the guest’s mobile device with their room number at Aloft Lexington. Once at the hotel, guests can skip the check-in line and go straight to the room, where their keycard will unlock the door, giving guests control of their check-in experience in the palms of their hands.
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