LG CNS launches 'smart hotel' service
A Japanese tourist tries out LG CNS’s “Smart Guestroom Service” at a room in Hotel Skypark Central in Myeongdong, downtown Seoul, Tuesday.
By Cho Mu-hyun
LG CNS, the information technology (IT) service arm of LG Group, launched a new hotel service using smartphones today.
The firm’s “Smart Guestroom Service,” released in cooperation with domestic hotel franchise Skypark, will allow guests to receive a digital key for rooms and use their touch-screen devices for features available in their room.
The service is currently limited to Skypark Central’s 16 rooms on its 15th floor. The IT solution firm said it planned to expand the service to a fifth and sixth hotel that are expected to open later.
Skypark currently has four hotels that total 682 rooms in the Myeongdong district, one of Korea’s favorite tourist attractions.
For now, visitors will receive a hotel-owned smartphone. But LG CNS will soon develop an application so that they can use their own for the service.
Besides using it as key, they can use the phone to control the temperature and lighting as well as the television. Also room service can be ordered.
They can also monitor the occupation status of rooms at the hotel.
LG CNS plans to add more features to the service, such as setting temperatures inside the rooms using a timer.
It will also add an electronic payment service for their stay using smartphones. Visitors will also able to book rooms with it.
LG CNS’s latest service is based on its “Smart Green Platform” launched in July this year. It combines the previously disparate solutions used to manage different features in a building or a city, such as CCTV, sensors and lights, into a unified platform. The main goal is to conserve energy.
It took 20 months to develop and is being applied to LG Group-owned buildings and in piece-meals like the recent hotel-focused one to different industries.
The company said it planned to release other solution variants using the platform that can be applied at offices, schools, factories, airports and other facilities.
“The unveiled Smart Guestroom Service will drastically improve guest convenience,” said Kim Ji-seop, head of LG CNS’s smart green business division. “LG CNS will lead the smart hotel market, and will offer local and foreign clients who manage buildings or cities a customized service that is in a entirely different level.”