We are a nation of thieves. Every morning, in hotels up and down the country, guests are walking off with hundreds of rands worth of household items - and we're not talking about the odd bottle of shampoo, bath caps or body lotion.
In one London hotel there's been a run on espresso coffee machines and iPod docking stations, while the Malmaison in Birmingham recently discovered that a flat-screen television had gone missing.
High on the list of items routinely slipped into suitcases are coat-hangers, umbrellas, bath robes, hairdryers, towels, flannels, leather folders and pens and pads of paper galore.
So it is little wonder that a company has invented a microchip which, when sewn into a towel or dressing gown, alerts the hotel if the item leaves the premises. Hotels can then charge the guest's credit card.
William Serbin, whose firm sells the trackable linen, says up to 20 per cent of towels and gowns hotels put in their rooms go missing. A towel with a chip costs about R6.00 more. The tags last for more than 300 wash cycles and can be read by sensors up to 2m away.
One hotel manager said he was ‘perfectly relaxed' about guests absconding with bath robes ‘as long as they have our logo on them'.
Source: ehotelier.com
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