Estrel Berlin

The hotel is a long-standing establishment with steadily increasing occupancy. Up to 900 rooms are checked in and out per day. The old locking system could no longer cope with these dimensions. The existing system reached its capacity limit. The structure of the database was outdated and offered too little storage space. In addition, there were technical problems with the magnetic cards due to interference from mobile phones. Consequently, the Estrel decided to purchase a new electronic hotel locking system, especially to improve reliability.

The security requirements included clear and flexible control of access rights so that the hotel can reliably issue and block them, the expiration of access rights so that they have to be updated regularly, and traceability. For large events, the hotel sometimes works with external staff, for which it needed a secure system for access. And card handling was to be simplified, i.e. the design, encoding, issue and return of access cards. In terms of reliability, the stable functioning of the hardware and software was crucial, because this has a significant impact on guest satisfaction. And for the management, they wanted to be able to form zones in order to simplify administration by standardising according to departments and hierarchical levels.

Furthermore, there had to be an integration to the PMS (Property Management System) Opera from Oracle used in the hotel. And the provider should have experience in the hotel sector and its specific requirements - also in terms of size.

Those responsible chose a system from SALTO that offers a better overview and structure adapted to the size and thus ideally supports the hotel's processes. The decisive factors for choosing SALTO were the wealth of functions, flexibility and scalability.

Currently, all 1,125 guest rooms and suites, over 300 doors in the Congress Centre and back-of-house as well as around 500 staff lockers at the Estrel Berlin are equipped with the SALTO solution. XS4 One electronic escutcheons are used throughout the guest area, on the hotel room doors with an electronic privacy function. In the back-of-house, the XS4 Original escutcheons are installed, partly in the wide version on fire doors and with an outdoor kit on exterior doors, as well as a double reader on the doors to the breakfast room. XS4 glass door escutcheons for meeting rooms are also installed. 24 SALTO wall readers are used to secure various access points, e.g. at the staff entrances, at roller doors (with gate function) and at the entrances to the multi-storey car park. In addition, around 500 XS4 Locker locks have been installed for the staff lockers in the changing rooms. The hotel also uses two SALTO GEO electronic padlocks for security in the materials store.

Due to the versatility of the SALTO solution, the staff changing rooms are also included, which was not originally planned but proved to be a useful addition to the hotel's locking system. The hotel has now installed a new changing and laundry system that eliminates the need for permanently assigned lockers. With it, the cleaning of clothes, access control and changing rooms are linked together: At the end of their shift, staff hand in their uniforms to the laundry system and can automatically collect them with their access card when they start work the next day. The lockers, which are secured with electronic locker locks, can thus be freely assigned and are only occupied during working hours. In this way, the Estrel not only saves space and costs today, but also has potential for expansion in the future.

The project at the Estrel Berlin is not yet finished. The foundation for the new Estrel Tower and another event complex will soon be laid, and there will once again be more than 1,000 access points involved.