Weekly posting for november 17th 2006

Soaring average room rates drive hotel performance in China

http://www.hotelmarketing.com/index.php/content/article/061011_soaring_average_room_rates_drive_hotel_performance_in_china/

This article is an analysis on the current situation of the hotel industry in China. The performances have been very amazing since the preparation of the Olympic Games in 2008. The number of constructing hotels and hotel revenue performances are still growing highly. It is not only thanks to the Olympic games, the hotel growth went up thanks to the Disneyland opening near Hong Kong, the development of convention and exhibition centers in Shenzhen and the launch of the new Oasis Hong Kong low cost airline to London is promising China a very good year.

Weekly posting for november 10th 2006

European hotel guests get room keys on mobile phones thanks to NFC

http://www.contactlessnews.com/library/2006/10/05/european-hotel-guests-get-room-keys-on-mobile-phones-thanks-to-nfc/

This article written by Andy Williams is about a revolutionary system to check-in in European hotels. This system is called the NFC (Near Field Communications) consisting in unlocking doors with NFC users' cellphone.

This can be revealed as a very usefull method as most of guests don't like checking in and out. This system avoids queues and waists of time by allowing guests to go directly to their room when they arrive.

The impact on the hotel business can be increased thanks to that system because guests will be satisfied by this revolution but the point is that all hotels will have to renovate the hotel and equip the doors with this card/cellphone reader system.

Another point is that the NFC system is compatible on cells that can receive NFC system which is another negative point because it is a very particular and modern system that most of people don't have. So if guests who don't have this particular cellphone they still have to line up to the front desk to pick up the card which replaces the cellphone.

As a conclusion, we could evaluate this system as very efficient but it would take time to have it in place in all hotels but also to inform guests of the system.