Hotel towel scam
One of the things that I really hate about hotels are the little "green" cards saying that if you care about the planet, you'll use dirty towels for a couple of days. You signify this by dropping the towels on the floor or something as opposed to putting them on the rack. The "save-the-planet" messages are written like they were written by a Jewish mother toting a Greenpeace bag and are straightforward in their guilt-provoking prose.
Hotels around North America have unsurprisingly sprung up to the challenge and put the little cards in all their bathrooms. Many of them have gone one better and making the default action "no-towel" unless you do something bizarre, like put a special card on the bed or in one case, actually being forced to call the desk and say that you want fresh towels every day (Earth-Killer!).
The Internet is littered with websites telling hotels how much money that they'll save by doing this, typicall $1 - $1.50 per day, per guest. That's why they're doing it. If hotels could save money by protecting wildlife, you'd have rabbits in your shower. They are not doing it to be good citizens, they are doing it to save $1.50 per guest, per day.
Hotels will spit filthy smoke into the air from a heating system, sponsor seal-clubbing expeditions for their guests or invite the oil industry to have an Exxon Valdez reunion with no shame at all. The towel scam is a cynical attempt to increase their profit margin.
I like clean towels every day. When I spend $200 for a hotel room, I expect them, regardless of what I'm doing to the planet. Can't they just raise the price of the cans of peanuts in the minibar or tack another couple of bucks on inroom porn or something?
Posted on July 24, 2006
