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Starwood launches world’s first keyless check-in

SINGAPORE - Now you need never worry about losing your hotel key card again: Starwood introduced the world’s “first truly mobile keyless room entry” yesterday.

Download the Starwood Preferred Guest app to check in and open your hotel room door

Download the Starwood Preferred Guest app to check in and open your hotel room door

SINGAPORE - Now you need never worry about losing your hotel key card again: Starwood introduced the world’s “first truly mobile keyless room entry” yesterday.

All you need to check in and unlock your hotel room door is your smart phone and the Starwood Preferred Guest (SPG) app. At the press event at W Singapore Sentosa Cove yesterday morning, Arnaud Champenois, Starwood’s Asia Pacific Senior Brand Director, unveiled SPG Keyless, a new initiative that allows guests who book their rooms through Starwood channels such as its website, app and hotline, direct access to their rooms just by using their mobile phones.

SPG Keyless is one of the innovations and personalisation efforts that Starwood is focusing on, said Regional Vice President of Starwood Hotels and Resorts in South East Asia, Chuck Abbott.

What you need to do is register their phones through the SPG app and enable push notifications. You will then receive a key code which means you can go directly to your room when you arrive. To unlock the door, simply enable the Bluetooth technology on your phone, open the app and hold it against the door lock. At the moment, only one phone can be registered to one room.

This keyless technology was unveiled today in 10 hotels globally across three Starwood brands — W, Aloft and Element. W Singapore Sentosa Cove is one of the three in Asia specially selected for this initiative, due to its status as one of the “important hubs” of Asia, said Champenois. The other nine are Aloft Beijing, Aloft Cancun, Aloft Cupertino, Aloft Harlem, W Doha, W Hollywood, W Hong Kong, W New York-Downtown and Element Times Square. Plans are already afoot for SPG Keyless to be available in 150 W, Aloft and Element hotels around the world by early 2015.

W Singapore Sentosa Cove General Manager Stephane Fabregoul said the take-up rate for his has been positive so far - 60 guests checking in over the next two weeks have opted for SPG Keyless.

“We’ve spent US$500 million on innovation over the last five years,” added Abbot. “SPG Keyless would not only unlock the opportunity for people to arrive in different ways and not be tied down to traditional means of checking-in at the front desk. It gives you the freedom to do your own arrival without having to worry about lines or waiting for others to do things for you.”

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