ITHACA, New York—Towels, pillows, hair dryers, toiletries—the list of items lifted from hotel rooms throughout the world each day is as varied as the guests who stay in them. But, according to Rob Kwortnik, associate professor at Cornell University’s School of Hotel Administration, only some of those stolen items are beneficial to owners.
It all comes down to motivation, he said during a session last week at the Cornell Hospitality Research Summit.
Kwortnik, who focused his research on U.S. hotels, said some guests take items—toiletries, towels—for value. “I paid X. … It’s OK if I take the towel,” he said.
Other guests operate under the equity theory, stealing items because they thought they were treated unfairly.
“I had a bad experience, so I’m going to take whatever’s not nailed down.”
But the motivation that most interests Kwortnik—and that which could prove most useful to owners—is bred out of good intention. “Is it possible that when people take things, it’s actually driven more by the desire for keepsake value?” he asked. “Once I leave, the experience is gone. But when I take something … I’ve kept something that’s part of the experience. Maybe every time I see it, I’ll re-experience that original experience.”
Such “memory cues”—a keycard, pen, branded mug or ashtray—are invaluable marketing tools that can promote lasting loyalty and advocacy for a particular property or brand, Kwortnik said.
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| Rob Kwortnik, associate professor at Cornell University’s School of Hotel Administration, discussed the marketing value of stolen items from hotel rooms. |
Owners should not view the removal of such items as theft, he said. Call it a marketing cost, he said.
Most guests hold a similarly forgiving view, Kwortnik said, citing research from focus groups and surveys he conducted with several hundred travelers. Respondents viewed door hangers, mugs, ashtrays, stationary, corkscrews and pens as rife for the taking as souvenirs.
Toiletries—bottles of shampoo, lotion and soap—were among the most frequently taken because guests thought they would be wasted otherwise.
But when it came to more expensive items such as hair dryers, robes, phones, umbrellas and TVs, the majority of respondents said the removal of such items should be considered theft and punishable by law.
Amnesty days and marketing buzz
The Holiday Inn chain recognized the power of such memory cues when it announced a “towel amnesty day” during 2003. The plan was simple: Grant one day in which guests could return Holiday Inn-branded towels lifted from properties during the preceding years and decades.
But the goal was slightly less straightforward. “They didn’t want the towels back,” Kwortnik said. “They wanted the story of why the guest took the towel and what the guest did with it.”
Brand ambassadors collected those anecdotes and memories and compiled them in a coffee table book. Kwortnik recalled one of his favorites, in which a man had taken a towel during his honeymoon.
“I lost the girl years ago,” the man wrote. “But I still have the towel.”
The iconic Waldorf Astoria New York launched a similar amnesty campaign for any and all stolen items. Executives again wanted the stories—as well as the actual items. Expensive silver and ornaments from ages long past were returned and displayed in the hotel to highlight the property’s decorated past.
The installations also created a lot of marketing buzz, Kwortnik said.
“Think about the value of that for (public relations) and don’t think of it in terms of a cost,” he said. “That’s what I think is powerful.”