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Guests at the resort, which opens next year, will use
RFID wristbands to do just about everything, including
entering rooms, accessing lockers, buying food and
arcade tokens, and even taking pictures.
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Nov. 16, 2007 - KeyLime
Cove Water Resort is an indoor, year-round
water-park vacation resort being built in Gurnee, Ill.
When the resort opens next year, guests won't need to
worry about wet wallets or lost keys putting a damper on
their vacation-it plans to issue RFID-enabled wristbands
that they can use to make purchases at the resort, and
also as electronic keys to access guestrooms.
Such applications are becoming increasingly common at
large resorts, especially those catering to families. In
addition to not having to carry wallets and purses, many
parents appreciate the ability to outfit children with
wristbands they can use to buy snacks (see
Two Ohio Water Parks Become RFID-Enabled). KeyLime
Cove, however, wants to employ its wristbands for other
applications as well, such as tracking action photos
taken on the resort's water rides, or using the
bracelets to purchase tokens in its arcade.
To that end, KeyLime Cove has selected
Precision Dynamics Corp. (PDC), a provider of
cashless-payment and identification systems, as its lead
supplier and consultant in implementing these
applications. PDC will provide the resort with its Smart
Band RFID system, consisting of a wristband containing a
passive ISO 15693-compliant, high-frequency (HF) 13.56
MHz inlay, along with a kiosk guests can use to load
value onto an account associated with their wristbands.
The company will also provide and maintain a back-end
database of unique identifiers encoded to the inlays,
along with the software used to authenticate each
wristband transaction. Parents will be able to set up
and load value to sub-accounts, linked to the unique IDs
encoded to the wristbands issued to their children.
KeyLime Cove believes the wristband system will provide
added convenience to its guests, and is working to
enable every financial transaction in the resort-from
paying for locker access to purchasing a soda from a
vending machine or buying arcade tokens-through the
wristband system. According to PDC, the adoption of RFID
wristband payment systems often increases spending
inside a resort.
Guests needn't worry about the security of their
financial data or personal identity, says Tom Foster,
regional sales manager for PDC's leisure and
entertainment segment, because all such data will be
secured. The RFID inlay within the wristband (issued to
each guest upon checking into the hotel) will be encoded
with only a unique identifier. That number will be
encrypted, he assures, so that even if someone were to
get close enough to a guest to use a handheld
interrogator to read a wristband's inlay, the device
would access only an encrypted number. According to
Foster, all financial and personal data stored in the
back-end databases will also be encrypted.
Additionally, PDC is working with a number of third
parties to deploy the resort's various plans for the
wristbands. For instance, it is partnering with
Micros Systems to
install RFID readers at point-of-sale stations installed
throughout the resort.
In addition, PDC is working with
cStar Technologies to provide readers that will be
installed in the resort's vending machines. This will
enable visitors to purchase refreshments and snacks by
waving their wristbands in front of the interrogators,
which will then read the unique ID of each wristband and
transmit it back to PDC software to post each
transaction.
Salto Systems,
meanwhile, is providing guestroom door locks with an
integrated RFID reader that will allow the wristbands to
be used as electronic keys. Guests will be able to
utilize the wristbands to purchase access to lockers
secured by
Smarte Carte
locks, and
Ideal Software
Systems will be provide RFID readers for the arcade
token machines, as well as software to post token
purchases to each guest's prefunded account.
To offer visitors a method of managing and purchasing
vacation photos, PDC is working with
Jackson
Digital Imaging, a photography company specializing
in amusement parks, to install an RFID-based
photo-tracking system. "There will be readers at the top
of certain waterslides or other attractions in the
park," Foster explains. "So if a guest wants to have
their photo taken during that ride, they'll just hold
their wristband up to the reader as they enter the ride.
Then, cameras mounted along the ride will take their
picture during the ride. At then end of the day, the
guests will go up to a sales booth, swipe the wristband
again, and all of the photos taken of them throughout
the days will appear on a screen, and they can select
which ones they'd like to purchase."
Foster says Jackson Digital Imaging will manage the
timing of the cameras to ensure that images captured are
associated with the correct guest wristbands, and that
these images are gathered into a single file and shown
to the appropriate visitors at the booth.
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