If you’re considering updating your dated key system or starting with key cards at your new business, you’re making the right choice. Even hotels with vintage charm often rely on key cards to keep guests safe and the costs of operation low.

Hotel key cards are highly effective in the hospitality industry. They serve as a practical tool for guests’ convenience and as a solid promotional tool for branding purposes. Learn about their many advantages, what you can put on a custom key card, and the different types of cards available.

The Benefits of Using Hotel Cards as a Promotional Tool

Well-designed key cards that display a brand logo are the best possible key tools for your hospitality business. They have the benefit of being:

1. Convenient

Lighter than traditional keys and shaped like a credit card, key cards are easy for guests to store in their wallets. They are a hassle-free solution for modern hotel room access. They are also easier to use than a traditional key and ideal for quickly accessing multiple rooms.

2. Cost-Effective

When you rely on key cards, you can avoid hiring a locksmith to replace your locks or cut new keys. If a traditional key goes missing, it is an altogether more expensive process to ensure your guests’ safety and replace the key.

Making new key cards doesn’t require a master key. Cards with a magnetic stripe are reusable five to eight times with new encoding. RFID technology cards have indefinite uses with new encoding. You can deactivate lost key cards and issue new ones quickly and easily.

3. Efficient

Key cards are simple items to give to guests and easy for them to return at check out, so they take less of your time. Their smooth surfaces make them easy to sanitize and reuse. They are designed to unlock rooms with ease, making them ideal keys for guests with physical disabilities.

4. Low Risk

Traditional keys are usually marked with room numbers to prevent confusion. This is a security risk if someone finds a guest’s lost key. Missing key cards can be deactivated as soon as a guest reports it lost, and they can get a new one just as quickly. When a key goes missing, it can take longer than a week to replace the lock on a door.

5. Reliable

Most key card locks use radio-frequency identification (RFID) to sense the assigned RFID in the key card. This is how key cards communicate with a room’s lock mechanism. Some key cards operate using a swipe feature and others function as one-touch devices.

6. Multi-use

Key cards can be designed to unlock restricted areas of a hotel such as a swimming pool, gym or computer lab. They can also be used to enter and exit the hotel after check-in hours have passed. This multi-use safety feature is much more difficult to implement using other key methods.

7. Customizable

You can customize your key cards to reflect your brand identity and print any information on them that guests might find useful. Key cards make excellent branding tools.

8. Tamperproof

Anyone can duplicate traditional keys creating unauthorized copies. Although this is an uncommon problem, it is possible with traditional keys but isn’t an issue with key cards. Since cards cannot be duplicated or tampered with and are easily replaced, they lack such a security risk. Key cards might be able to store basic check-in data, but guests can carry them without concern of losing sensitive information or financial details, which is unattached.

What Can I Put on a Hotel Key Card?

Customize your hotel key cards with your logo, graphics, and useful information for your guests. You can customize the front and back of both magnetic stripe and RFID keycards. Text that can go on your custom hotel key cards could include:

• Graphics: The hotel’s image, art or logo gives your cards a professional aesthetic.
• Local attractions: Traveling guests often want to know what there is to do in the area.
• Website: Reminding guests of the hotel’s website is another way to get them to revisit it.
• QR codes: This feature makes your key cards even more convenient for your guests.
• Contact information: Adding your business’s contact information gives good Samaritans the chance to return lost hotel key cards.
• Frequently asked questions: Any information your guests often ask can go on the cards.
• Advertisements: Let your partners display their brands on your key cards to remind guests of their products or services.

Get creative with your design choices to make the most out of your key cards. Marketing for hotel key cards can be as simple or flashy as you prefer.

Why a Hotel Key Card Design Is Effective

Hotel key cards are small but effective branding tools. Promoting your business this way allows you to:

• Make full use of a tool: A key card can easily have more than one purpose.
• Establish a brand image: Customers will associate the colors and design on the key card with your brand identity.
• Highly visible placement: The amount of space on the most commonly used item in the hotel is small but valuable.
• Easily stored: Modern wallets and purses are designed to have ID and credit card slots, making key cards the perfect size and shape for guests to carry around.

Types of Hotel Key Cards and Their Features

A key card operates using the latest technology for quick access. In the hospitality industry, it’s important to use a reliable access control system. Here are the two most common types of key cards and how they operate:

• RFID: These key cards connect to RFID locks using wireless communication and activate with proximity.
• Magnetic security stripes: Metal grooves and ridges are a thing of the past with the built-in security on a key card. This type is also called a “mag stripe card.”

Order Hotel Key Cards With PLI Card Marketing Solutions

With new technology replacing the turn-key lock in many industries, it’s time to upgrade to the most secure key systems. Hotel owners who use supply key cards can save money and give guests a better experience.

At PLI Card Marketing Solutions, we produce cards equipped with the latest security technology. If you’re interested in upgrading your access technology, please contact us about our hotel key cards or other products we provide for our clients in the hospitality industry.