The Landmark Hotel is one of the finest five-star hotels in London. With its distinctive style and ambience, it combines classic British elegance and grandeur with a wide range of deluxe facilities. Guests can relax and enjoy a full range of treatments at the hotel’s luxurious Spa and Health Club. Its facilities include a 15-metre chlorinefree swimming pool, stateof-the-art gym, sauna and steam room. As well as appealing to members from the local area, its central location makes it a popular choice for tourists. The Spa and Health Club regularly attracts over 1200 visitors per week.
Before installing KitLock on the lockers in the Spa and Health Club changing rooms, guests would often ‘claim’ the lockers as their own for the duration of their stay.
“We’d found that regular guests, especially ones using the facilities over a number of days, would take the locker key away with them,” explained Joey Cererio, Manager at The Spa and Health Club. “Not only did this limit the number of lockers available for the other guests to use, also, when we checked the lockers at the end of the day, it was impossible for us to identify whether a locker was in use or if the key was genuinely lost. It was becoming very difficult to monitor.”
With only 40 lockers for the guests to use, the Landmark Hotel Spa and Health Club decided to remove the key operated locks and replace them with a keyless alternative instead.
KitLock 1200 is a durable electronic lock suitable for securing lockers. Fitted in place of a standard cam lock, it provides simple keypad access without the hassle of keys, coins or tokens. Instead, access is gained by entering a four-digit code on the keypad. Guests simply enter a user code, then ‘lock and go’.
A KitLock can also be opened using a ‘technician code’. This code will open the lock without erasing the user code and is particularly useful if guests forget which locker they are using and staff need to access several lockers to find the right one.
“Using a technician code we are now able to open all the lockers at the end of each day and check that property is not left inside overnight,” said Ms Cererio. “With Kitlock this process is easy and it enables us to ensure that all of the lockers are free for use again in the morning.”
“From a security perspective, we were always concerned that if keys went missing they may be copied and used to gain illegal entry at a later date. With a keyless solution, we no longer worry about that particular issue. And from a practical point of view, the guests no longer have to carry a key round with them while they are enjoying the facilities. What’s more, we don’t have to pay to replace the lost keys.”
In ‘locker-mode’ a KitLock operates with a single-use code setting facility. The guest enters a four-digit code, that will lock and open the locker only once, then be erased. The locker then remains open until another guest uses it again.
When a locker is available, the lever handle will be in the open position. The guest opens the locker door, places items inside the locker and closes the door. The lever is turned to the closed position and the guest enters a four-digit PIN code. A beep is audible for every button pressed. The blue LED will flash after the last digit; the new code is now accepted. A red LED light will flash to show the locker is in use.
To re-open the locker, the guest enters the four-digit code and turns the lever to the open position, ready for the next guest to use.
“We tested a range of digital locker locks, but KitLock was the clear winner in terms of ease of use and durability,” said Ms. Cererio.
25, Feb 2013