The invention of the hotel key card

Witness History

BBC

History, Personal Journals, Society & Culture

4.4 • 1.6K Ratings

🗓️ 8 January 2025

⏱️ 11 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

In the 1970s, Norwegian Tor Sornes invented the hotel key card. He wanted to improve security in hotels after he heard the news that one of his favourite singers, Connie Francis, was attacked in her hotel room.

After making a prototype in his garden shed, Tor then had the challenging task of selling his invention globally.

Tor’s son, Anders, tells Gill Kearsley how persistence paid off for Tor, and the hotel key card was adopted worldwide.

Eye-witness accounts brought to life by archive. Witness History is for those fascinated by the past. We take you to the events that have shaped our world through the eyes of the people who were there. For nine minutes every day, we take you back in time and all over the world, to examine wars, coups, scientific discoveries, cultural moments and much more.

Recent episodes explore everything from football in Brazil, the history of the ‘Indian Titanic’ and the invention of air fryers, to Public Enemy’s Fight The Power, subway art and the political crisis in Georgia. We look at the lives of some of the most famous leaders, artists, scientists and personalities in history, including: visionary architect Antoni Gaudi and the design of the Sagrada Familia; Michael Jordan and his bespoke Nike trainers; Princess Diana at the Taj Mahal; and Görel Hanser, manager of legendary Swedish pop band Abba on the influence they’ve had on the music industry. You can learn all about fascinating and surprising stories, such as the time an Iraqi journalist hurled his shoes at the President of the United States in protest of America’s occupation of Iraq; the creation of the Hollywood commercial that changed advertising forever; and the ascent of the first Aboriginal MP.

(Photo: A later version of a hotel key card. Credit: Getty Images)

Transcript

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0:00.0	Before you listen to this BBC podcast, I'd like to quickly tell you about some others.
0:05.1	My name's Andy Martin and I'm the editor of a team of podcast producers at the BBC in Northern Ireland.
0:11.3	It's a job I really love because we get to tell the stories that really matter to people here,
0:16.2	but which also resonate and apply to listeners around the world.
0:19.6	And because the team is such a diverse range of skills and strengths,
0:23.0	we have trained journalists, people who love digging through archives,
0:26.6	we've got drama and even comedy experts.
0:28.9	We really can do those stories justice.
0:31.5	So if you like this podcast, head to BBC Sounds
0:34.2	where you'll find plenty more fascinating stories from all around the UK.
0:42.6	Hello and welcome to the witness history podcast from the BBC World Service with me, Jill Kursley.
0:48.8	I'm taking you back to the 1970s and the invention of the hotel key card.
0:58.7	It was Tura Saunas who invented the device that was used to improve security in hotel rooms
1:04.3	throughout the world. Tura lived in Norway and worked in the research and development department
1:09.7	of a factory that made locks and ice
1:12.3	gates. His son, Anush, remembers as a child using machinery to make all kinds of things out
1:19.5	of metal with his father in his shed in the garden. But it wasn't an ordinary shed.
1:24.8	It was like a fairy tale of a place in a way where you could sort of make anything
1:29.2	and there was lots of interesting old objects to look at.
1:32.2	This was where the hotel key card was invented.
1:36.6	Anish said that his father was the kind of person who wasn't able to pass a problem
1:41.4	without trying to solve it.
	...

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