They want to know where their towel is. All of their towels.
RFID Tags Protecting Hotel Towels
A more recent system, still not widespread, is to embed washable RFID chips into the towels and track them that way. The one data point I have for this is an anonymous Hawaii hotel that claims they’ve reduced towel theft from 4,000 a month to 750, saving $16,000 in replacement costs monthly.
Don’t steal any more Beverly Palm Hotel robes, Axel Foley.
How difficult is it to count the towels in the room before the guests arrive, and count again after they leave?? Charge the guests if any are missing.
Housekeeping must count the towels anyway, because they have to make sure the correct amount of clean and dry towels are in the bathroom after they’re done with the room.
I make that to be $4.92/towel. How much does each RFID plus its fraction of overall detection and enforcement (infrastructure, energy, and labor) charges cost? Management obsesses on what is measurable instead of promoting what is important.