Stealing hotel towels could be a "buzz" killer with alarm chips
Found this on the net:
Those big hotel towels are so soft, so absorbent -- they're like Bounty on steroids. No wonder you're tempted to take one home when you check out.
Be forewarned that when you and your pilfered towel walk out the lobby door, an alarm may go off somewhere.
At least three U.S. hotels are using radio frequency identification chips sewn into the fabric to track their towels, bathrobes and sheets.
One reason is better management of inventory. But there's also the human factor:
Hotel guests steal a lot of towels.
A Honolulu hotel that uses RFID chips to track linens saw the theft of pool towels drop from 4,000 a month to only 750, The New York Times reports, reducing replacement costs by $16,000 monthly. William Serbin, executive vice president of Linen Technology Tracking, which makes the chips, said the theft rate for hotel linens and robes is 5% to 20% a month.
According to a 2004 survey by Orbitz, 18% of hotel guests admitted taking towels. Only 2% took bathrobes or bathmats. (Bathmats?)
Replacing these items has gotten much more expensive because the price of cotton has jumped 150% since August. It's so high that clothing manufacturers are incorporating more synthetics into fabric, raising prices -- look for increases of 10% to 20% for cotton apparel this year -- or using less of it.
