Should Hotels Go Keyless at Check-In? Decision, Guest Experience and Lock System Design

You need to decide whether hotels should stop giving guests physical room keys, such as key cards, when they check in, and rely on another way to open the room door instead. Explain how you would make that decision, and then describe the design of the keyless approach, covering both the product that guests and hotel staff use and the system that sits behind it. ### Clarifying Questions - Are you deciding for one hotel chain that runs its own properties, or building a product that many independent hotels and brands would adopt? - Does removing keys mean no physical card exists at all, or that a card is no longer handed out by default and is available only on request? - Which outcome matters most: shorter front-desk lines, lower operating costs, fewer lost or failed cards, or a more modern guest experience? - Can the door locks already installed accept a phone-based credential, or would doors need new lock hardware? ### Part 1 — Decide whether to drop physical keys Explain how you would decide whether to make the change: what it should achieve, who gains and who loses, what evidence you would gather, and which results would lead you to go ahead, adjust the plan or stop. ```hint Who still needs a card? List the guests and situations in which a phone cannot act as a key, and decide what the hotel must still offer them before the change can count as a success. ``` #### What This Part Should Cover - Goals for guests and for the hotel, and where they could conflict. - The stakeholders affected beyond guests, such as front-desk, housekeeping and security staff and property owners. - A pilot or test design with success metrics, guardrails and explicit decision criteria. ### Part 2 — Design the keyless product and system Design the keyless experience for guests and staff from booking to checkout, and the system that grants, checks and withdraws room access, including how it behaves when something fails. ```hint Locks may be offline Assume many door locks run on batteries with no network connection. Work out how such a lock can trust a credential it has never seen before, and how a departed guest's access comes to an end. ``` #### What This Part Should Cover - The guest journey and the fallback paths, such as a dead phone, a guest without a smartphone, and several people sharing a room. - The components and data flow for issuing, verifying and revoking access. - Security, privacy and failure handling, including emergency access by staff. ### What a Strong Answer Covers - A clear recommendation tied to the stated goals rather than a list of considerations. - Treatment of guests who cannot use a phone key as a design requirement rather than an afterthought. - Product choices and system choices that support each other, so every fallback the product promises actually exists in the system. - The practical cost of change: lock hardware, staff training and a phased rollout across properties. ### Follow-up Questions - A pilot shows check-in time fell sharply, but calls from guests locked out at their door doubled. What do you do next? - How would a guest give room access to a travel companion, and how is that access withdrawn early if needed? - Older properties cannot afford new locks for several years. How does that change your rollout and your recommendation?