Ripping up the rules on plundering hotel rooms
HOW often have you returned home from a hotel stay with the toiletries from your room in your suitcase?
Have you taken a robe, or an umbrella that the concierge gave you to keep you dry?
Research from travel insurance specialists Columbus Direct suggests that hotels around the world lose millions of pounds each year, as guests help themselves to items such as dressing gowns and slippers.
Millions of us mistakenly believe these items are included in the cost of the room, while 38 per cent think of taking them home as theft.
Some holidaymakers admit they know that they shouldn’t take certain items but believe they are such low value they it can’t be considered theft.
An estimated 1.6million of us take drinks from the mini bar and refill them in the hope they are not detected. A further four million have taken lower value items from the hotel such as batteries, light bulbs, glasses or cutlery as they believe this is built into the cost of the room.
A leading hotel in California reported a guest taking a bolted down TV from their room while a five-star hotel in Washington reported one trying to take a roll-away bed.
Carolina Vicente, marketing director at Columbus Direct, said: “It can be confusing to know those amenities in hotel rooms there for each traveller to use and take with them, like toiletries, and those considered the hotel’s property.
“It is worth checking with the hotel if you are able to take things like dressing gowns or slippers, or if you will be charged for these, as no one wants an unexpected bill after they return home.”
Residents in Liverpool seem to be the most honest when it comes to taking items. Half consider it as theft compared to just 29 per cent from Southampton and Bristol.
Glasgow and Edinburgh are halfway down the table with 39 per cent and 42 per cent respectively believing that they commit an offence when taking certain items home from their hotel rooms.