As part of £4m renovation, the four-star Grand Hotel in Lytham St Annes, Lancashire, is having internal locks replaced with electronic escutcheons.
Andy Barras, Maintenance Manager at The Grand, says: "We previously used suited mechanical locks on our internal doors and if a key was lost we had no option but to get new keys cut and replace the lock or locks in the affected part of the hotel. Not only was this inconvenient, but it could work out to be pretty expensive too! Access control manufacturer SALTO Systems has provided 90 card reading handle sets and three online readers to date. SALTO’s UK Sales Manager Dean Pendlebury reports that the locks are networked to the hotel front desk PC, and need no hard wiring or WIFI infrastructure. Both the key card (which can be contactless) and the lock have a built-in antenna which communicates two-way. This can open a guest’s room, and permit access to secured facilities such as the swimming pool.
SALTO’s UK Sales Manager, Dean Pendlebury, said: "Hotel installations are normally based on a secure locking origination that requires flexible time limited access. In practice this means that hotel guests usually stay for short periods of time after which their access authorisation is automatically withdrawn from the room lock. This is normally controlled via specialist front desk software such as our HAMS (Hotel Access Management) which is a high tech electronic lock system featuring distributed intelligence in both the lock and the key card. The locks are networked to the hotel front desk PC, yet they need no hard wiring or WIFI infrastructure. Both the key card (which can be contactless so you don’t need to swipe the card through a reader to unlock it) and the lock have a built-in antenna which performs simultaneous two-way communication. This can be used to not only open the guest’s room, but can also permit access to other secured hotel facilities such as the swimming pool, health club, gym etc, and thanks to the lock and on key audit trail facility, the hotel can easily check who accessed a room and when."
About SALTO Systems
Based in Oiartzun, Spain and with offices in the UK, USA, Mexico, Portugal and Malaysia, SALTO Systems reports that its customer markets include airports, hospitals, government buildings, universities, corporate headquarters and hotels.
