My career as a hotel thief ended in 2014, when a Bangkok hotel receptionist stood over me as the four-star hotel’s doorman carefully removed a pair of blue corduroy slippers from the depths of my suitcase (I had convinced myself they would not be used again).
Two years ago, I braved the Radisson Blu Chicago into the bitter cold of a windy January day, wrapped in the hotel’s gray felt bedspread. The doorman forgave the raid on the hotel’s furniture, admitting that British city coats were no match for minus 17 temperatures and shin-deep snow.
But the most memorable was a theft I witnessed at an English country house hotel. The perpetrator was a drunken Fleet Street journalist and the object of his desire was a flat-screen television. This drunken clerk tried to sneak out of reception, clumsily under a white bath towel, as horrified staff stared at him.
These are not isolated events. A report published this week by luxury spa and hotel guide Wellness Haven surveyed 1,376 European hotel managers about the items most frequently stolen from their properties.
Towels, bathrobes and coat hangers were found to be the most commonly stolen items, while consumable items such as batteries and pens were more likely to be stolen from four-star hotels, while luxury items such as iPads and artwork were more likely to be stolen from five to half-inchers. -the stars stop by.
Items stolen in larger quantities since a similar investigation in 2019 include mini fridges, lamps and, impressively, hotel beds; Among the more bizarre stolen items highlighted in the report are: an entire sink (stolen from a hotel in Berlin), a grand piano (smuggled out of a hotel lobby in Italy by men posing as fake movers dressed in overalls) and room numbers (in the UK). was broken into a hotel room door by a determined hotel guest).
Meanwhile, German and British hotel guests are more likely to steal pedestrian items like towels and bathrobes, while American guests are excited to snatch pillows and batteries. Italians prefer wine glasses as hotel souvenirs, while practical Dutch people stock up on toilet paper at the expense of the hospitality industry.
In a classic episode of Friends, Ross teaches Chandler 101 on stealth stealing from hotels: “You’ve got to find the line between ‘stealing’ and taking what the hotel owes you,” Ross says, scolding Chandler for trying to recoup $600 from the restaurant. Pay the hotel bill by covering your hotel and pepper shakers with your pants.
“Hair dryer, No! NO! NO!” schools, “but shampoos and conditioners: Yes! Yes! Yes!”
Wellness entrepreneur Amelia Andrews says her family calls the theft of ordinary hotel toiletries “doing a Ross Geller.”
“We prefer to only take things from the room, like body lotion,” explains the 51-year-old actress. “I’m not brave enough to steal something like slippers or a bathrobe.”
Writer Jill Davis, 45, sees the raid on in-room tea and coffee supplies and the breakfast bar as a way to get her money’s worth. “I’ve been known to buy a bag to smuggle items out of hotel kiosks,” she admits. “I once opened the package after an overnight stay to find my husband and we both agreed to steal mini jars of Nutella to take home as gifts for the kids. We had eight of them. “I only bought two, but my husband, who is both arrogant and has bigger pockets, bought six.”
Clinical psychologist and editor of The Travel Psychologist blog, Dr. Charlotte Russell says rising room rates may encourage some guests to buy hotel shower gel and tea bags.
“Some of us perceive rising prices as ‘taking advantage’,” he says. “If people feel they are being exploited, they are much more likely to engage in behavior such as petty theft.”
Hospitality industry professional Roz Colthart believes many hotel guests view their petty theft as a source of pride: “People steal everything,” she says. “I once had a guest proudly tell me and my staff at Malmaison that he had created a complete set of plates and cutlery by stealing one piece at a time from our hotels!”
Hotels are responding to this new thieving mood by searching rooms and bags for stolen items as guests check out, while others are encouraging guests to better behavior by listing the cost of purchasing the room’s movable items on room-mounted lists. These include Brown’s Hotel in Mayfair, which offers guests the opportunity to buy items from the Sir Paul Smith Suite for £10,900, including £250 striped cushions and a three-seater sofa (try sneaking this one from reception); Savoy Signature offers everything from £70 pillows to £172 shaving kits to be purchased after your stay; and Patina Hotel in the Maldives, which lists a full range of in-room items, including water glasses (set of two, $39) and chopstick holders ($19), for direct delivery to guests’ home addresses when they return from vacation.
These days it’s a daily gesture for spa hotels to post authoritative signs warning guests that robes, slippers and pajamas are not to be stolen but can be purchased from on-site boutiques (see signs from the five-star Thai spa resort above). Chiva-Som). But the emergence of large refillable toiletry bottles in hotel rooms for environmental reasons is eliminating luxury shampoo and body wash miniatures as the most common out-of-pocket item in many hotels.
If you’re wondering what happened to that (now retired) television theft, he was caught by the hotel manager and frog-walked back to his hotel room, television and towel in hand, but suffered no more serious consequences than a red face and a grim expression. hangover. Want a martini and a bed next time, buddy?