The lost and found at many hotels has gone digital. A new website is making it easier for travelers to find items that they may have left behind.
Chargerback.com is a website that brings the hotel lost and found to the internet. Hotel employees that find items type a description of the item on the site as well asinformation about where it was found. Guests can enter the site and enter a description of the item they lost. Once there is a match, the guest is contacted and they can return to the hotel to pick up their item or they can pay a fee to have it shipped to them. The site creates prepaid shipping labels that the staff can place on the packages.
"We've really streamlined the process a lot," says Ranson Webster, chief executive officer of Chargerback, according to USA Today.
More than 30 hotels currently use the site. Some include Treasure Island, New York-New York and The Rivera in Las Vegas. The site doesn't cost anything for the hotels but guests must be a fee in addition to the shipping price. On average, it will cost $10 to $12.50 for an item to be shipped to the owner.
Webster hopes to expand this service to airlines, rental car companies and other travel industries as well. According to a survey, 30 percent of 2,000 respondents said they lost an item that was worth $150 or more. Business and leisure travelers lost 10 items on average but 43 percent didn't bother to try to find it because of the process.
"We're not talking about small numbers here," Webster says. "Hotels are really interested in getting an item back to the rightful owner. That's part of building brand loyalty."
According to Jean-Pierre Patay, hotel director of the Silver Legacy Resort Casino said he had hundreds of items in the lost and found including things such as stuffed animals, blankets, jewelry, electronics and dentures. They had so many items that they had a hard time locating them when guests would call to ask for them.
"It was frustrating both for our employees and the guest. It was very time-consuming," he says.
For Patay, Chargerback has helped simplify the process and more guests are being reunited with their items.
This article is copyrighted by Travelers Today, the travel news leader
