For those who enjoy helping themselves to soap, shampoo, and wash cloths from hotels, but don't enjoy sneaking past the hotel staff and wrestling with feelings of guilt and shame, there might be a bit of hope.
Hotels, especially high-end ones like New York's Waldorf-Astoria, are now inviting guests who may have slipped a room key or a shot glass into their luggage the chance to return it without facing any interrogation.
“We know there are treasures out there that belong to the Waldorf; we see them going up on eBay all the time,” said the hotel's social media manager, Meg Towner, to Bloomberg Businessweek. “We’d like them back and we’d like to know where they came from.”
The program is specifically attempted to find items taken between 1931, when the hotel opened, and 1960. Pieces deemed to be especially significant will be displayed in a lobby museum and in the hotel’s digital archives, while other artifacts may be featured on the hotel’s Facebook page. The Facebook page will also share tell the tales of how the items disappeared from the hotel.
“The stories are the best part,” said Keith McClinsey, director of sales at Marriott’s Renaissance Mayflower Hotel in Washington, D.C., where a similar initiative took place in 2007. “Someone returned a coffee creamer from a wedding in the 1920s,” he told msnbc.com. “They also sent pictures of the wedding, which we included in an exhibit of the items.”
A banquet chair from the 1920s was also returned, along with a champagne bucket from the 1940s and a five-gallon punchbowl that disappeared from a 1950s holiday party. A bathtub was also taken when the hotel was renovated, according to McClinsey, but the hotel wasn't interested in repossessing that.
The idea has caught on in other countries, too. In fact, the Fairmont Chateau Laurier in Ottawa launched an amnesty program in February in order to celebrate the hotel's 100th anniversary. To date, the hotel has received over 130 items, many of which are now on display in glass cases around the property said Deneen Perrin, a spokeswoman for the hotel.
When returning the items, many people made sure to maintain their innocence. “Of the 130 or so items we received,” said Perrin, “probably 100 said, ‘I didn’t steal it but…’”
Some people don't say anything. In one instance, a former guest pulled up to the hotel and handed the doorman an original doorknob that he’d taken on a previous visit. He said noting, and drove away without leaving his name.
To be sure, the hotel isn't likely to prosecute someone for returning an item. Instead, they see it as a chapter in the hotel’s history and a way to tell a good story.
This article is copyrighted by Travelers Today, the travel news leader
