When we check into a hotel, we usually get a key card instead of a key. Why do hotels provide key cards instead of keys?

There are some reasons.

1. The first is cost. For businesses, the cost is not limited to a key or a key card itself; if the physical key is lost, it must be replaced with the door lock on the room at meanwhile. For guests, the price of key compensation is too high, and it is also very troublesome for the hotel to change the lock.
2. Security is the top priority of hotel work. In a hotel, it will receive all kinds of people, so security is always the focus of hotel work. Once the physical key is lost, for the sake of the property and personal safety of the guest, the hotel must change the room for the guest. However, with the current NFC/RFID card, the guest only needs to inform the front desk that the room card is lost, and the front desk only needs to make a new key card, and all the previous cards will be invalid, so there is no need to worry about the security problem of losing the key.
3. It is convenient for hotel management. With the electronic key card, the hotel can take more active control of the room, even if the guest does not return the card to the front desk, it does not affect the next guest to check in. Or the guest needs to continue to stay because the deposit is not enough, the hotel can not receive the money, or through the system of the room card is invalid, so that the guest has to come to the front desk to make a new card, pay the deposit, etc..
4. “MasterKey”. A MasterKey can open all hotel rooms, and HouseKeeping only needs a room card key card when cleaning. In addition, the physical key cannot read any data, but any key card can read all data through the system.

There are many other advantages of key cards. In this information age, the use of physical keys has gradually decreased, which is also the embodiment of survival of the fittest.