Tech cutting the cost of hotel thefts

A Honolulu hotel has reduced the number of towels stolen from 4000 to 750 a month by embedding washable RFID chips in its towels.

The chips allow real-time tracking of stolen items, and are reported to have saved the hotel more than $23,000 a month to replace stolen towels.

The washable tags can be attached to hotel towels, sheets and robes.

A company at the forefront of the technology is RFIDHY.

A spokesperson for RFIDY says: “The stealing of hotel towels isn’t a big problem in the scheme of world problems, but it can be expensive for hotels.

“Sure, we have moral prohibitions against stealing — that’ll prevent most people from stealing the towels.

“Many hotels put their name or logo on the towels. That works as a reputational societal security system. Most people don’t want their friends to see obviously stolen hotel towels in their bathrooms.

“Sometimes, though, this has the opposite effect: making towels and other items into souvenirs of the hotel and thus more desirable to steal.

“It’s against the law to steal hotel towels, of course, but with the exception of large-scale thefts, the crime will never be prosecuted.”

Miami-based Linen Technology Tracking is using the RFID tags to track towels, sheets and bathrobes.

The spokesperson explains: “In the hospitality industry, one of the largest expenses of room occupancy is the growing cost of linen supplies — but until now, hotels are in the dark with regard to where those assets are, both when they’re in the hands of customers and when they’re being laundered by outside vendors.”

Each item is scanned and monitored to and from the laundry, in and out of linen closets, at various check-in or check-out stations, down laundry chutes and even at pool and beach kiosks.

Everything can be monitored in real time, with information sent to an analytics engine.

And it’s not just preventing theft, but helping hotels make their workflows more efficient.

TRICKS BEHIND RFIDHY

When the smart card industry kicked off in mainland China 20 years ago, RFIDHY was at the forefront.

“In 1995, we began by producing plastic magnetic cards,” the spokesperson says.

“We were the first supplier of magnetic cards as the ticket for AFC (automatic fare collection) system for Shanghai Metro No.1 line.”

The company started producing RFID cards, RFID industry tags, animal ID and other RFID products. Its first client in Europe was in Spain in 2005, and since then it has expanded to hundreds of clients, covering up to 100 countries.

rfidhy.com