At last week’s Dubai Hotel Show, LOCATEL and Nokia showcased a new way for customers to access and purchase hotel services using NFC tags.

NFC has been around for a number of years and the availability of this technology on mobile phones is growing by 300% per year.

By introducing NFC technology to the hotel industry, customers will be able to interact with panels in reception, lobby and business centres, as well as NFC tags that are installed in guestrooms providing access to personalised services.

“NFC technologies are included in most of the late 2013 Nokia Lumia range of mobile phones, thus opening up possibilities for many new interactions” says Yannick Debaupte, Nokia Developer’s relationship and app store director, Europe. “We are pleased to support LOCATEL in developing applications for the hospitality industry and to demonstrate together the extent to which the guest experience can be enriched, improved and simplified by the implementation of NFC.”

Using NFC technologies in hotels means that customers can expect faster response time and automatic authentication.

Customers can currently expect to call a taxi, download apps and view mobile TV with just a touch of their phone against the NFC tags that are available.