10.08.2016

Park Plaza Arena Pula, first Croatian hotel with digital key feature

Following last year's launch of the mobile application “PPHE Croatia”, we continued with development which resulted with free and unique service for our guests – using their own smart devices as a digital key. Park Plaza Arena has become first hotel in Croatia with this feature and in this way ensured competitive advantage.

Last year's design and launch of the free mobile application “PPHE Croatia” designed for the guests of Park Plaza Histria Hotel, Park Plaza Arena Hotel and Park Plaza Verudela Resort was a result of increasing demands and expectations of guests for the access to information regarding their stay via their tablets and smartphones, but also a result of hotel’s need for a direct contact with its guests.

This year, in addition to an application upgrade intended for the guests of Park Plaza Belvedere Hotel, it became necessary to expand the functionality of the application for the purpose of using smartphones as keys for the hotel rooms, thus avoiding additional cards and eliminating check-in queuing at the reception desk. This expansion has just been implemented in the Park Plaza Arena Hotel and so it became the first hotel in Croatia with a digital key. The intention is to make this service available to all the Park Plaza branded hotels in Pula and Medulin.

The project and application’s technical realisation has been done in cooperation with the local company- Intersoft Tehnologies. This year's novelty – the digital key has been developed in cooperation with the world’s leading hospitality access control company Assa Abloy Hospitality, while the integration of the technical solution was completed with the help of Arenaturist’s long-time partner supplier of electronic locks Špica sistemi from Zagreb.

The application is user friendly and allows our guests to start using digital key feature following five simple steps:

  • Download of the free mobile application “PPHE Croatia”
  • One-time application registration
  • Confirmation of the registration at hotel reception and creating digital key
  • Enabling Bluetooth option on smartphone
  • Leaning smartphone on the electronic lock and unlock the room door

Mobile application “PPHE Croatia” is available on Apple Store and Play Store or it can be downloaded directly from the following link: http://www.m1tourism.com/pp/

With “PPHE Croatia” mobile application, “Arena Turist” free mobile application for guests of our non-branded Arenaturist properties and “Facility” application which is used for communication between management and departments, Arenaturist is the leading Croatian accommodation provider when it comes to new mobile technologies.

Mobile application “PPHE Croatia” with digital key feature is nominated for the “Innovation of 2016” sponsored by Croatian Tourist Board.