Boulder City Magazine is a monthly publication full of information about Boulder City and Southern Nevada. Boulder City Magazine features the Boulder City Home Guide, a real estate guide to Boulder City and Southern Nevada.

Travel Now
by Ihla Crowley
Drifter Sister

There's An App For That

Imagine a time when you will be able to pull into a parking structure and have your phone tell you how to find an empty parking spot. Next, you check-in at the airport by scanning your airline loyalty card at a check-in reader, drop your bag at a nearby kiosk for automatic tagging, and zip to your gate.


While in the air, your in-flight entertainment system knows your food and fun preferences. Love Lady Gaga, Macadamia nuts, and The Mechanic (the original)? They’ll be waiting for you. Prefer Andrea Bocelli, flavored almonds, and Gone With the Wind? You’ve got that instead. When you get to your hotel, you zip past reception, breeze up to your room, and unlock the door with a prompt from your smart phone. Once inside, you use an in-room iPad to dim the lights, adjust the drapes and temperature, and sit down to enjoy the lunch waiting there for you.

Sound futuristic? Guess what, that time is now!

In the Munich Airport’s indoor parking garage, all of the parking places have sensors, and lighted arrows point the way to an empty spot. Quantas has embedded its loyalty cards with a chip that helps customers zip through the airports in Perth and Sydney, just as described above. Soon, Virgin Airlines will let you tell them your preferences before boarding, and the in-flight entertainment system at your seat will be customized accordingly. A system being tested at a Clarion Hotel in Stockholm will allow you to email the hotel and get your electronic room key in response. Once there, you bypass the front desk and head for the room, where the door unlocks with a prompt from the phone. Several Aloft hotels are testing special Starwood Preferred Guest cards that have embedded chips that allow guests to bypass the desk and immediately go to their room. The Plaza Hotel in Manhattan allows a guest to use the in-room iPad to dim the lights, raise the thermostat, order room service, request a wake-up call, and more. Says David Adelson, CEO of the software developed for this hotel, “With the Plaza’s iPhone app, you could order lunch while strolling in Central Park, and have it waiting for you in your room when you return.” 

Source: High-tech travel shortcuts, by Terry Gardner, LA Times

For travel tips and reasonable tours, check out driftersister.com.

Catch the wind...
Taste the rain...
and touch all of your tomorrows...



Boulder City Magazine®
688 Wells Rd #A
Boulder City, Nevada 89005
Phone (702) 972-0661
E-mail: BoulderCityMagazine@gmail.com



Web Site Design by Appleby Arts
Copyright © 2004 - 2011 - Boulder City Magazine - All Rights Reserved
E-mail Web Master at: webmaster@bouldercitymagazine.com

Disclaimer