Souvenirs or theft?
0As I headed to work today prepared to do some light brainstorming on my lunch break, I grabbed a notepad and a pen. I didn’t grab just any notepad and pen, I grabbed a notepad and pen that I had “swiped” from the hotel I stayed at in New York. Now I say “swiped” when I should just say took. Everyone has taken things from a hotel that they consider to be complimentary gifts. In reality however these gifts aren’t gifts at all. This lead me to wonder, exactly what gets taken from hotel rooms and who actually takes it?
Turns out a lot of people take “complimentary gifts”. In a poll by Orbitz, 61% of people admitted to taking at least toiletries from hotel rooms. This high number makes sense because toiletries are the one item that hotel management actually consider complimentary. Reason being: it costs them nothing (or next to it). Every bottle of shampoo or bar of soap costs on average about 20 cents. In total there is about $3 of goods in every hotel room that is considered “replaceable”. This could include everything from toiletries to the very notepad and pen that I am writing on right now.
All your toiletries are belong to me.
Unfortunately for them, that isn’t the only thing that is taken after check-out. 18% of people admitted to taking towels and 14% stole ashtrays just to name a few. What are the most popular things to take? Towels are a give in at number 1 but strangely enough the second most stolen item is cushions. Some other odd things often taken from hotel room include phone books, wooden suitcase stands and bibles. Poor Gideons never knew what hit them.
With experts saying that over 100 million dollars of property is stolen from hotels on a yearly basis it is clear that this is not something they take lightly. Next time you take something from a hotel room think twice: do you really need 20 individual packets of shampoo?
