Tim Purpura, VP Global Sales and Marketing for Morse Watchmans discusses the power of key control data and how it brings business intelligence and efficient security to hospitality properties.
It’s 6 a.m. at a London hotel and housekeeping staff arrive anticipating their daily work shifts when an unforeseen problem arises.
The housekeeping manager, who administers and distributes keys, had an emergency and called out for the day.
A locked housekeeping office containing supplies and room access keys delays cleaning schedules, leaving housekeepers queued in the corridor.
Once notified, the hotel facilities manager hurries down a long corridor to the lift, exits and strides down another to the maintenance office, opens a desk drawer and rifles through a muddle of keys before finding the master set.
By the time the housekeeping office is unlocked and keys distributed, room cleanings are off schedule, eroding staff morale and leaving hotel administration flustered that guests may notice the delays.
It’s 6 a.m. at another London hotel and housekeepers arrive for their shifts.
Queuing at the hotel’s electronic key control system, they swiftly enter their credentials and within seconds essential keys illuminate and unlock.
They instantly retrieve them, gather necessary supplies and begin cleaning assigned guest rooms.
When the housekeeping manager is off site, keys are reassigned remotely or on site by another authorised key control administrator, allowing staff to access the keys needed to cover room cleanings for absent colleagues.
Understaffing is an ongoing issue for the UK’s hospitality industry.
In reference to a 2024 Opus Business Advisory Group article ‘Staffing Issues Still Holding Back UK Hospitality,’ a survey conducted in the summer of 2023 revealed that “61% of hospitality businesses reported having staffing shortages.”
To fill the void, UK hospitality relies heavily on migrant workers, yet migration is currently a hot button here and in other countries.
According to a May 2025 DeseretNews article: “The number of migrants in the UK quadrupled over the past four years,” which resulted in the government making swift changes to immigration policy.
Protests at hotels harboring migrants erupted on both sides of the issue, deeming it necessary for extra security and police.
Secure access control is essential for the building perimeter and the inside of the hotel to ensure that protests do not escalate into violence, theft and vandalism.
With ongoing understaffing and greater risk for security incidents during changing and challenging times, security technology with business intelligence plays a vital role.
Electronic key control is one such technology that brings security, business intelligence and efficiency to hospitality properties, with or without staffing shortages.
Electronic key control provides ‘thinking’ for physical key management and provides ‘brains’ behind fundamental key and asset management physical security for greater hotel business intelligence.
Hotel key control administrators no longer need unreliable manual sign-out and storage key control procedures.
The electronic key control system securely automates and expedites all key transactions.
Lost, misused and stolen keys cause expensive security breaches.
Hospitality key management systems connect traditional keys with intelligent automated technology to meet the ever-changing security and operations needs of hospitality enterprises.
Electronic key control allows key control administrators to assign specific keys to specific users and to program key usage by days of the week, specific times, by work shift and more.
This key control technology provides business intelligence to every hospitality enterprise department with information, innovation and integration:
Missing keys from any department put hotels at risk for incidents of theft, data breaches and liability and compliance issues.
The expense of replacing keys and locks also leads to shrinking profit margins.
When security incidents occur, the hotel’s reputation is also at risk.
Besides security and protection, an increase in ‘key intelligence’ helps to manage hotel security and business operations in unexpected ways.
With an electronic key control system, every key transaction provides intelligence for security and business operations efficiencies.
Let’s explore a few ways that key control provides intelligent security and business operations for hotels.
Data collected from all electronic key control transactions provide forensics for security incidents.
For instance, if a hotel employee keeps tampering with the hotel’s HVAC settings, key control administrators can review audit trail information to reveal who accessed the HVAC room during these incidents.
Key control administrators can then take appropriate action to ensure that key control policies and hotel security and operations procedures are enforced.
Many hospitality properties have ‘zero trust’ security protocol for their master security plans.
Key control systems provide data for authorised key users surrounding security incidents and audit trail reports lead security administrators directly to the alleged culprits.
Large properties or properties with satellite locations benefit from the intelligence of networked key control cabinets throughout a hotel or hotel properties in strategic locations.
This provides convenient access to keys and allows centralised intelligent key inventory management, which, when connected to the hotel’s main security office, enables security personnel and key control administrators to access data from all key control cabinet locations, inside and outside the perimeter of the building.
For instance, when a hotel employee is dismissed from their employment at location A, the human resources or security manager on site at location B, can revoke access control permissions for keys immediately, eliminating potential for sabotage of hotel property.
This network connectivity promotes secure remote management of every single key and every single key user, which translates into saved time, increased productivity, safety and security.
Any time a key is removed by an authorised key user, data received by the key control system delivers information about efficiencies, productivity and supply and demand.
Key control assists in helping business operations ‘right size’ their number of employees and assets to optimise efficiency, productivity and profitability.
For instance, a hotel owns six shuttles that transport passengers to and from airports and theme parks.
Driver A always uses the same shuttle and driver B uses two regularly, depending on the number of passengers.
Through key control usage and through preferences, hotel business operations audit key control activity and discover that two shuttles are rarely used.
Through key control audit information, the hotel saves money by reducing the number of fleet vehicles needed, saving maintenance and service costs.
This article was originally published in the December edition of Security Journal UK. To read your FREE digital edition, clickhere.
