Soon, guests at Starwood Hotels & Resorts Worldwide will be able to check in and open their room doors through an app on their smartphones.
The brand will feature the app at two hotels before the end of the quarter: one at the Aloft Harlem hotel in Manhattan, and another in Cupertino, Calif. These hotels will be the pilot hotels for the program.
Guests will be sent a message on a Starwood Hotels app that will contain a "virtual key." They will reportedly unlock their doors by either tapping the screen on their phones or rotating their mobile devices. You will need at least an iPhone 4 or an Android 4.3 to use the app.
The news has been received with mixed reviews.
Starwood CEO Frits van Paasschen said, via the Wall Street Journal, "We believe this will become the new standard for how people will want to enter a hotel. It may be a novelty at first, but we think it will become table stakes for managing a hotel."
The question is, would the majority of guests prefer to go straight to their rooms, or would they rather talk to front desk agents about their rooms or upgrade? There's also the fact that some guests like to be greeted when they arrive.
Starwood executives don't plan on eliminating front desks, at least for now, but they are hopeful that the new app will gain traction.
Like any new endeavor, only time will tell if Starwood's plan will work. There is sure to be an adjustment period, for travelers and the brand's hotels. But it's certainly a novelty. In a time when technology is making all kinds of things possible, Starwood's latest venture is just another sign of a company trying to stay ahead of the curve.
In fact, the Hilton, Marriott and InterContinental brands are all looking at similar methods to check guests in, according to the Wall Street Journal report.
If the idea catches on, Starwood plans to upgrade its door locks in all of its 123 Aloft and W hotel locations by the end of 2015.
Follow me on Twitter @RyanRudnansky.
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