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How to Reduce Guest Theft in Hotels

Guest theft is inevitable in the hospitality industry. Guests are always sneaking rolls of toilet paper out of your bathroom or bottles of water out of your fridge. Just search on Google. Numerous articles and forum threads come up, guest-to-guest, letting each other know what they can get away with.

But one of the most detrimental and expensive pieces that guests commonly steal are your hotel’s towels and linens.

Think about it – with the multitude of towels in your bathroom, guests can easily take one from your hotel unnoticed. Or if your guests throw all of their bed linens into a bundle before checking out, a missing pillowcase may not be blatantly apparent among the pile.

This ends up wasting your hotel’s time and money and can potentially cost you a room if you are missing towels and linens in your supply.

What Can You Do?

Say goodbye to the days of putting a hotel room together, only to realize you are low on towels, or are one pillowcase too short. Here are our integral tips on how to reduce guest theft in hotels that will change the way your guests look at stealing from your hotel:

Guests Need to Know That They Will Not Get Away with Steling Your Linens

One of the reasons all of these articles and posts exist from serial linen thieves is because 1) they probably don’t realize how costly it is for the hotel, 2) they are excited they got away with it, 3) they now have free linens, helping them save money, and 4) they want to share the wealth.

• Come up with a system for when hotel linens go missing from a room. Some hotels will charge guests for stealing linens.
• Let your guests know that this system is in place by leaving signs both in your rooms and at the front desk. On these signs, also let them know how you track your linens. This will make them aware of not only that they will be charged for taking linens, but how you verify that they did indeed take it. This is essential to prevent them from claiming that they didn’t take the linens if they did in fact take them.

Train Cleaning Staff on Sorting and Counting

Have a document in place that details every single room number and how many of each linen that room should have. Have the staff count linens as they are changing them out, as well as how many of each clean linen they have placed into the room. By reporting these numbers, it will be easier to notice if linen goes missing.

Don’t be Quick to Place Blame

If some linens are missing, it might not be the fault of the guest as the count may have been incorrect. Make sure to double check across the cleaning department to determine if this is an error on your staff’s part or if the linen has indeed gone missing.

Work with a Hotel Linen Rental Service

A hotel linen service will help you keep track of everything, so you know exactly how many towels and sheets and pillowcases you’re using on a weekly basis and how many you’re losing.

Work with Crown Linen Service

Are you looking for a hotel linen rental service that will give you the high-quality products you need and the help you require to manage your hotel linen inventory? Contact Crown Linen Service today to learn how we do both.