Hotels putting towels under wraps

As much as 20 per cent of hotel linens are stolen each month.

I have to come clean about something – I take soaps and shampoos from hotel rooms.

In fact, I haven’t had to buy a bar of soap or a bottle of shampoo for almost 10 years now.

I’m not alone, of course. Many other people help themselves to “designer” soaps in high-end hotels like the Ritz-Carlton or Four Seasons and one executive with Fairmont hotels once told me that amenity thieves actually pay the hotel a compliment because by taking soaps and shampoos the guests are actually letting the hotel know they approve of the brands stocked in the property’s bathroom.

Towels, however, are a different story.

I’ve never tucked a towel away in my suitcase at checkout but apparently many others do. And the practice of stolen towels and bathrobes has become such a problem for hotel chains that some are now employing anti-theft devices - radio-frequency tags stitched into towels, robes and other linen which triggers an alarm if removed from the premises – to try and keep the thievery under wraps.

The “Linen Technology Tracking System”, which is similar to shop security tags, has been patented by a Miami-based company and is now being employed at hotels in Hawaii, Miami and New York.

A hotel industry source says that properties lose between 5 and 20 per cent of their linen inventory per month and that something has to be done to cut down on the losses.

I just hope they don’t embed detectors into soap.