Siemens, Sheraton Get Smart

<B> Siemens, Sheraton Get Smart</B>

By Maria P. Vallejo

<I>Boston</I> - Siemens Corp. expects to begin beta testing smart cards within the next few weeks, guaranteeing its travelers corporate negotiated rates with Sheraton Hotels & Resorts.

As Siemens' preferred hotel vendor, Sheraton will accommodate about 1,500 of the company's North American frequent travelers carrying the smart cards in the form of a corporate Visa card, said Dan Geller, Sheraton Corp.'s vice president and director of national corporate travel sales. These cards, embedded with an 8K computer chip, will hold basic information about their owners, including name, address, negotiated rate information, phone and Sheraton Club International numbers.

"We want to make it as basic and simple as possible and build on that," Geller said. "We want to get just enough data to be evaluated and modified."

Travelers will present the card during the six-month beta test in six hotel testing sites, New York, Manhattan, Chicago, Boston, Gateway LAX and Suites Elk Grove Sheratons. The project launch was slated to begin by April 15, but Siemens' officials said it may extend this projected startup date as it waits for all the cards to be ready for rollout. U.S. Bankcorp. is now cutting the cards, which will be distributed to the selected Siemens test group. The project also is awaiting the completion of the card's introduction package, which explains the project's procedures, expectations and required feedback info.

"We need to make sure that everything we tell them is working is there," said Hanna Murphy, Siemens' director of corporate travel and fleet services. "The time frame is not as important as getting it right. It needs to be complete and we need to make sure that everyone is on board."

Each hotel will be equipped with a smart card-reader machine at the checkin desk that will pull up the preferred customer information. As the machine processes the microchip information, it automatically will apply the customer's negotiated rate to the hotel booking. This alleviates any possibility of receiving a different rate that could have been booked prior to the stay.

"Even if you went and made a reservation at the prenegotiated rate, certain times, due to during human error during checkin, or due to the failure of the traveler to identify himself properly, that rate is not always brought up. This assures that that happens.," said Michael Orr, director of business development of Springfield, Va.-based 3GI, which developed the smart card technology. "The key is it occurs during the POS transaction itself."

Murphy's brainchild, the company's smart card project was developed after millions of dollars were lost during previous airline, car rental and hotel bookings. In the past, 50 percent of Siemens reservations on one airline was booked incorrectly, costing the company about $1 million in savings, she said. The carrier received about $10 million in annual business from Siemens (<I>BTN</I>, Nov. 3, 1997). Some preferred airline and car rental vendors also will use the cards.

After waiting more than four years for project support, Murphy's vision finally will come to fruition. The smart card for preferred hotel use was developed through a collaborative effort among Siemens, Sheraton and U.S. Bank Corp. U.S. Bank Corp. Visa will issue the card and design the training manual. The companies shared the project's financial burden, and they expect to receive individual benefits from its implementation.

In search of ideal ways to capture guest preferrence information, Sheraton eventually will use the smart cards to retain and capture this data. Sheraton's property management system will automatically update itself with the traveler's profile information received from the smart cards. Should that information not transmit through the PMS, the guest's current hotel accommodations can access the preferred guest information during checkin.