One hotel in Europe lays out the consequences for stealing towels. You will be denounced to an agency!
We inform you that all of our towels are equipped with an invisible localizable chip from the RFDI system. The towels cannot be carried out of your room. In the event that the towels do not remain in the apartment, the company reserves the right to denounce you to the relevant agency with fines from €300.00 to €15,000.00 attentively. THE DIRECTION.
Hotels have been embedding RFID chips in towels for over a dozen years.
A single hotel has saved $16,000 per month by reducing its towel thefts each month from 4,000 down to 750 by attaching washable RFID tags to its towels. I assume that they aren’t actually tracking down towel thieves, rather by letting guests know that the towels are tagged this serves as a deterrent. Presumably the deterrent would work just as well by telling guests that the RFID tags are in the towels, without any need to make the actual investment, at least as long as they are able to keep their lack of technology investment a secret.
If one hotel can save $16,000 per month or $192,000 per year – figures that were prior to pandemic inflation – you’d expect $28.8 billion a year in savings? Not all hotels use the same quality of towels, and on average they’re replacing towels every couple of months anyway. Hotels aren’t spending more than $1 billion a year on towels roughly anyway. So the savings doesn’t scale here. But there’s still big money involved in hotel towels.
The Nairobi Hilton once prosecuted someone for stealing two towels and they received a two year sentence. Twenty years ago IHG promoted ‘towel amnesty day’ but honestly I wouldn’t expect towel theft to be so common in a world of checked bag fees, who travels with extra space for towels?
But guests steal far more than just towels, with 5-star hotels more likely to see higher-value items taken – like tablet computers, artwork, TVs, and mattresses – though it’s unclear whether this is because they are more likely to have higher-value items in the first place or whether wealthier guests are more likely to steal?
One study found that guest nationality correlated with preference for stealing specific kinds of things from hotels:
- Germans and Brits mainly take towels, bathrobes, and toiletries
- Austrians prefer dishes and coffee machines
- Americans often steal pillows and batteries
- Italians favor wine glasses
- French target TVs and remote controls
Forty nine hotels reported mattresses being stolen in a two year period.Many hotels don’t admit the thefts so the real number is higher. How does a guest even do this without getting caught? Even if they don’t get noticed walking through the lobby with a mattress, when housekeeping goes into the room to turn it for the next guest, and finds the mattress gone, the hotel knows who stayed there last.
In 2018 a family was caught on video in Bali with items stolen from the hotel they stayed at packed in their luggage. The hotel demanded they open their bags for inspection and a big argument ensued. As the bags are searched one stolen item after another gets revealed.
We’ve heard about a grand piano stolen from a Sheraton lobby, and about guests who steal televisions from their room.
And, would you believe: carpet, light fixtures, curtains and mirrors? Even door hinges have been stolen. The Four Seasons Beverly Wilshire (the Pretty Woman hotel) had a fireplace stolen.
The thing is – at least until hotels began replacing miniature bottles with wall-mounted toiletries – hotels actually wanted you to take those mini bottles. They don’t want you to raid the housekeeping cart, but the ones in your room were fair game in hopes you would think of them and the brand when you use them. Hyatt specifically implored you to do it!
So while there’s skepticism over efforts to combat towel theft, within the bounds of good hospitality it makes economic sense.
I like to take the wash cloths and small towells.
They are great for cleaning.
It’s a part of doing business, hotels should just expect this loss and quite complaining.
In the last 10 years, hotels have eliminated toiletries, robes, slippers, bars of soap, shoeshine mints, corkscrews, mini-bars, stationary, printed hotel directories, in-room dining, desks and increasingly phones and alarm cocks. Some hotels are now even charging a housekeeping fee.
I can see a day not too far away when hotels eliminate towels or bundle them into a resort/destination/amenity fee.
Yeah, I would question that amount for towel losses. It sounds like they are cooking the books—laundering in a different sort. As for mattresses and TVs, they should look more at their staff than the guests.
And this is why we can’t have nice things anymore
No more shampoo unless you want to pry it off the shower stall wall
Thieves will be thieves , and Politicians will be thieves .
Corporations will cook the books , so as to not pay their taxes .
Judges are lawyers who pretend to be good .
Some people are pumping out the contents of the wall-mounted toiletries to transport in their own bottles to take home. And it probably happens more often with people who have big suitcases to check-in or those who are on road trips.
Kenichiro, if they’re being honest, and unfortunately, there’s a good chance they are, is nothing more than a common thief. Then they make it worse by justifying it with an amazingly weak “argument”.
I stayed 3 nights at M Social Auckland. I used the laundry bag for 3 pieces to be laundered. Housekeeping never replaced the laundry bag. After I left the country I get an amended bill charging me for the theft of a laundry bag. It took several emails to reverse the charge.
Pens , notepads and coasters if branded
I would bet most people reading here have never stolen a thing from a hotel except the pen and note pad provided on the desk.
I have never stolen a thing from a hotel, not a single thing and i have had decades and decades and decades of traveling. My parents didn’t steal either.
It is wrong to steal washcloths and small towels from hotels. It is stealing.
I remember seeing that Bali video and was flabbergasted.
I don’t expect the RFID in towels to be very cost effective outside as you say as a deterrent. To match the towel with the room, housekeeping would have to scan them in each time (an additional task and thus added cost). So more likely they might be able to detect them at hotel exits as you’re leaving, but that’s it.
Family Guy recommends stealing pool towels, if you’re one of those kleptos. Personally I only take single use toiletries and disposable slippers.
In Canada, someone stole a famous signed photo of Winston Churchill
I don’t care how bougie the hotel is because it’s still gross using those towels..I always travel with my very own white towels and wash cloths. But I would use them all as bath floor towels.
I am French, I usually take the pen and sometimes the face towel. The TV?? Come on!…
I honestly think this is rather ridiculous and I also think that hotels are blowing things way out of proportions with such dumb acts. Like why bother doing this,when one can just replace such bathroom ammenaties so easily. Pretty well, hotels around the world are making good money off of travellers whom stay at their hotels,so there is NO reason to do something that’s money wasting
I think the hotels should tip the thieves.
🙂
Working in hotels for years this is a huge expense, that’s why most hotels don’t do logo towels and buy the cheapest ones.
Everyone needs to know where their towel is.
@ FNT Delta Diamond — I for one am glad they removed the alarm cocks. I always found them too intrusive
Stuff like the mattress is probably an inside job.
In Texas it is actually legal to “steal” the toiletries. A hotel group sued the Comptroller, claiming the shampoo bottles were for “resale” and thus not subject to sales tax. Hotel won, but the decision makes clear that when you pay for the room, you pay for toiletries too.
Other hand, stealing towels (glasses, etc.) is wrong. It’s shoplifting. We SO coveted the matching pajamas at our last Conrad stay, but we’d never take them, they’re not ours.
Maybe the third world will be the last refuge of individual toiletries in hotels. Although I don’t stay in hotels very often, I did stay in one in Battambang, Cambodia and one in Pailin, Cambodia, in the last two weeks. Each had individual toiletries for guests. The first hotel was $45 a night and the second one was $20 a night. Both were reasonably nice and had refrigerators (my room in Caesars Palace in Las Vegas did not have a refrigerator) but neither had access to an ice machine. The biggest reason that I like individual toiletries is for hygiene.