Now you see it… a Holiday Inn towel is being stowed away as you read
A worrying one in ten of us are light-fingered when we stay in a hotel a new report has revealed and while towels are the most pinched item, brazen hotel guests have walked away with light bulbs, a sculpture and even a full-size cigarette machine.
The survey of 500 global hoteliers conducted by lastminute.com, today reveals that 95 per cent of hotels have fallen victim to theft by their light-fingered guests. Hoteliers estimate that the problem costs them over £4,000 on average per year,with this figure almost quadrupling to over £15,000 for five-star hotels.
According to the ‘Hotel Secrets Survey’ one in every 10 guest has made off with something they shouldn’t have – from the usual suspects to the absurd and ridiculous. Towels are the most popular hotel items to be stolen (87 per cent), followed by toiletries (60 per cent), some more daring hotel thieves have removed TVs (16 per cent), computers (4 per cent) and even a cigarette machine from the lobby.
The Hoteliers Stories:
A shocked hotelier in Istanbul reported that the contents of an entire room had vanished with only the bed, desk and TV remaining.
A Berlin hotel reported how one guest stole the stylish rain shower heads, hydro massage shower units, taps, toilet seats, interior plumbing and the sink itself.
One guest of a Las Vegas hotel took such a shine to the carpet and cut it out completely.
A sofa and mini-bar fridge disappeared from a 5 Star Dubai hotel
A guest took every single piece of cutlery and equipment provided in the kitchenette of a 3 Star hotel in Dubrovnik and a 5 Star hotel in Istanbul.
A five-star Madrid hotel reported an incident of a guest taking off with a mattress
Kathy Dover of lastminute.com commented: “For this survey hundreds of hotels shared secret stories to give us an insight into how far some guests will go to take things like towels, and high value items like TVs, sculptures and cigarette machines. In some cases the theft is very much premeditated with guests apparently packing their tool bag to remove some items.”
