SPG’s Keyless Entry Now Extended to Other Brands

THE TRAVEL industry witnessed a ground breaking turning point in the hotel experience with the launch of SPG Keyless in the Fall of 2014, the industry’s first truly mobile and keyless entry system that allows guests to use their smartphone as a key to their hotel room doors. Today, Starwood Preferred Guest (SPG), the award-winning loyalty program from Starwood Hotels & Resorts Worldwide, Inc, announces the next generation of SPG Keyless with even wider access to this leading-edge technology.

SPG Keyless is now extending this functionality to select Le Méridien, Westin, Sheraton, and Four Points properties worldwide, including Le Méridien Parkhotel Frankfurt, Le Méridien Hamburg, Le Méridien Columbus, The Westin Westminster, Westin Palo Alto, Westin Camino Real Guatemala, Sheraton Bloomington, Sheraton Mirage Port Douglas, and Four Points Cupertino. Many additional properties will be going live with SPG Keyless on a rolling basis in the coming months. These distinct lifestyle brands join Aloft, Element, and W properties already providing access to SPG Keyless, currently available at more than 160 properties in over 30 countries. The wider roll-out of SPG Keyless acknowledges the role mobile is playing as the remote control for travellers’ stays across a broader range of brands. Now even more guests can share in the SPG Keyless experience by unlocking their doors with their smartphone.

Starwood is also expanding SPG Keyless to enable multiple guests sharing the same room to take advantage of keyless entry. All they need is an SPG account and the SPG app. In this upcoming product update, SPG is also expanding mobile check-in capabilities on the SPG app, rolling out over the next few months.

“Innovation and personalization are at the centre of everything we do, and we’re committed to making travel better for every SPG member by creating solutions for pain points that are custom-made for their mobile lifestyles,” said Alyssa Waxenberg, Vice President of Mobile at Starwood Hotels & Resorts. “SPG Keyless is literally opening doors for SPG members. It is also transformative for Starwood’s hotel associates, allowing them to better-engage with guests. Rather than the first interaction being the swipe of a credit card, hotel associates can now focus on ways to better-personalize guests’ stays.”

Since SPG Keyless first piloted at 10 hotels in November 2014, Starwood has been quick to roll out the new functionality around the world to 36,000 doors. Already, over 350,000 members have registered for SPG Keyless, with SPG Platinum members being the most frequent users of the keyless solution, which provides a streamlined check-in process custom-made for their on-the-go travel needs. SPG Keyless has proven to be most popular in urban city-centre hotel locations, especially at mid-size Aloft and W properties. The top five SPG Keyless cities are New York, Chicago, Atlanta, Dallas and Miami, while the top five countries based on usage are the United States, China, Canada, Hong Kong and the United Kingdom.

SPG Keyless is an evolution of Starwood’s Smart Check-In, another industry-first that debuted at Aloft hotels in 2011. Building upon those early learnings to develop SPG Keyless, Starwood tapped the world’s largest provider of security and access solutions for the hospitality industry, ASSA ABLOY Hospitality, to create an all-new, Bluetooth-enabled lock, as well as keyless software, which is designed to securely recognize and connect with a guest’s mobile device. Since the initial launch, the SPG Keyless team has continued to iterate the product, learning from guest and associates direct feedback and the analysis of usage data. Leveraging agile development, improvements include increased stability and speed of the door unlock function as well as improving offline access.