Smartphones as room keys, is this future or present?

A world famous hotel group, the Holiday Inn started to test this issue: How would it work when the hotel guests could use their own mobile phone to go into their room?

The basic idea to download an application to the smartphones and hold the device next to a door sensor. It will open. The advantage on it is that people can use their own device, don’t need any keycards, which often get lost, is also a cost reduce solution and sustainable as less cards have to be produced. Others say it can make the Front Office unnecessary (I’ll write about this at the end). The disadvantage is that it can be hacked and there is a problem for example when the phone gets stolen.
This is what experts said about it. Also a Manager from the InterContinental welcomed the idea: Bryson explained: "The beauty of the smartphone is that guests already have one, and using it for access avoids "burdening people with additional items".

My idea about the arguments are that if a system is IT organized there is a simple way to interrupt into the system. When I worked in the summer at the Front Office, the Head of the Security of Apple was our guest, and he was telling me stories about it, how easy it is to do that. He told me (and who to trust if not him as an expert in IT things) that he could stand there in front of me and open all the doors within 5 minutes with his single smartphone.

The other aspect whit what I don’t agree is: Although there are every kind of solutions to get accomodated fast and automated, and some people seek after it, the personal touch in hotels will NEVER disappear. If we talk only about the money and business issue, a receptionist has really important tasks, not only preparing invoice, giving keys. E.g. he can look at the guests and with his experience he can decide how much deposit has to be taken, will it be a guest who will have 1000 EUR extra costs? A machine won’t be able to do it. No more details now, as it could be an other blog entry.