If you haven’t already noticed, bathrobes are hot commodities in hotels. When hotel guests walk into their rooms and find a smooth, freshly scented towel-like garment hanging on the bathroom wall just for them, they feel extra special.
Some hotels offer several guest amenities such as Wi-Fi, breakfast, and hotel room snacks, for free. That’s why bathrobes and towels are often times the items most commonly mistaken to be complimentary, and they’re therefore “taken.”
Guests are not charged for their bathrobes, so they automatically assume that they’re free. It’s funny how no one will really think of stealing a light bulb or something else that isn’t fixated into the ground, but the bathrobe is among the first to go.
Hotels notice when their towels, bathrobes, or any other room amenity goes stolen, and they actually include them in replenishment costs. Those expenses often amount to several thousands of dollars a year. Just as guests take items from their room with them, personal belongings like cell phone chargers, eyeglasses, and pieces of clothing, are often forgotten.
Hotels have a lost-and-found space to place such situations under control. Guests either realize they’ve left their items before leaving the city/country, or a close-by friend/relative picks up the forgotten item for them. In many cases, hotels have policies that allow for shipping an item back to its rightful owner.
Items left behind have solutions, but do stolen items have any? Not so much, apparently. Guests simply feel like their bathrobe is just one of those versions of an awesome party favor. But what are hotels to do? Stop giving away free amenities? Or should they post up a sign that kindly asks guests to not take their bathrobe home?
A great solution is for hotel owners to order a large amount of high-quality bathrobes and towels at an affordable price. At that point, they can actually gift the bathrobe to a guest on their first stay, or they can just count it as a lower replenishment cost.