When choosing material for your hotel key card, there are a few different options in the market. Then which material is the best for you? We collected 5 most popular materials that Nexqo’s clients use the most for their key card as a reference for you.
1. PVC
Advantage: Highly cost effective
Disadvantage: Not eco-friendly
PVC definately is the most popular material that most hotels use due to its low-cost and durability. Besides, you can add different amazing crafts on the card surface without adding too many costs.
If you want to make the cards a little more special, you can choose colored PVC and /or incorporate it with special material like laser material, brushed material to give a way different finishing on the card surface.
Large hotels especially 5-star hotels will change their room key card every few months to always leave a good impression among their guests, some will also give the key card to their guests as a little gift. So, if the key card shows too many signs of heavy use (scratches for example), it could damage the hotel’s brand image. A matt-finishing hotel card could help to reduce the signs of uses especially when you are using a magnetic stripe swiping system in your hotel, matt or frosted finihsing key card would be much better if you think the scratch is a huge problem to you.
Therefore, it’s very important to choose a cost-effective material for your key card because every cent beyond the budget will cause a large cost in the end.
2. Paper
Advantage: Eco-friendly
Disadvantage: Not durable
Paper hotel key card is an eco-friendly key card which is becoming more and more popular in the recent few years. Especially with the globally ban of plastic, eco-friendly materials will be eventually the trend of the material for hotel key cards.
However, the cost of traditional paper card is rather high especially when the order quantity is small. Nexqo develops an RFID paper card with new craft that could control the cost of paper card almost the same with PVC RFID card. You may check the product details here.
But the most disadvantage of paper card is that it’s not durable enough because it cannot stand high pressure or high humidity. As a result, the cost performance is relatively not high enough. But it might be the best option among eco-friendly materials till now. If you think spreading the brand attitude of eco-friendly to your guests or potential guests is even more important, then paper hotel key card should be a good choice.
3. Wood
Advantage: Eco-friendly
Disadvantage: High cost
Wooden key card is also popular among some high-class hotels because it’s eco-friendly and much more special at the first sight comparing with plastic key cards. The most special is, every card will have its nature texture that you cannot find the same texture from 2 different cards.
You can also print colorful patterns on the wooden cards, or laser engraving patterns on the card surface directly.
Making your key card with such a special material, and even, in a special shape will be definately impress your guests.
4. Leather
Advantage: High-end
Disadvantage: Expensive
Few hotels will use leather to make their hotel key card because they are extremely expensive. The cost of a leather key card is around 2-3 times higher than a PVC hotel card.
Sometimes, when the hotel corporates with some certain events or sports, games for throwing a special event, they will use a small batch of leather key card and give the cards to the designated guests as a special gift.
Leather key card is not eco-friendly, the core part is still made of PVC, but if you choose to use leather key card as your hotel’s room key, it usually can be used much longer than a PVC hotel card.
5. BioPVC
Advantage: Eco-friendly, relatively cost effective
Disadvantage: Little complex for degrading
BioPVC is a degradable PVC material developed by Nexqo. It passed ASTM D3826 and ASTM D5208-1 and was certified that it is 100% degradable. It is also popular because its durable and relatively cost effective.
Cost of BioPVC key card is just slightly higher than regualr PVC key card. The card will turn to yellowish with using after one to two years. When you don’t want to use the card any more, you just need to cut them into pieces and throw them into the landfill, and they will gradually degrade in around 2 years.
Colored BioPVC is also available if you want to make your key card more special. Black material is the most popular among all colored PVC materials because a all-black card will give a more decent effect than a black printing card.
There are still many other materials for making cards, like PET, PETG, ABS, etc. Nexqo promotes using eco-friendly materials for making all our cards as possible as we can, we are still working on searching new potential materials for replacing plastic cards, trying every effort in saving the earth. We hope more and more people come to join us.
If you have any ideas or questions regarding any of the above materials or new materials, welcome to contact us for further discussion.