Hotels start using tracking chips in towels to cut down on theft

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Courtney Boyd Myers

Courtney Boyd Myers is the founder of audience.io, a transatlantic company designed to help New York and London based technology startups gr (show all) Courtney Boyd Myers is the founder of audience.io, a transatlantic company designed to help New York and London based technology startups grow internationally. Previously, she was the Features Editor and East Coast Editor of TNW covering New York City startups and digital innovation. She loves magnets + reading on a Kindle. You can follow her on Facebook, Twitter @CBM and Google +.

Apparently hotels have had enough of our big fluffy white towel swiping antics. From now on, morals aside, you better think twice before walking out with a towel in your suitcase.

Linen Technology Tracking, a company in Miami, has patented a washable RFID chip that can be sewn into towels, robes and bed sheets, allowing hotels to cut down on theft and keep track of their linens amid rising cotton prices. The tags also allow hotels to monitor their linen inventory for re-ordering purposes.

In an interview with The New York Times interviewed Linen Technology Tracking’s executive vice president, William Serbin who said that so far 3 hotels in Honolulu, Miami and Manhattan are using the chip, but he wouldn’t disclose their names.

Since the Honolulu hotel introduced the technology last summer, it has saved more than $16,000 per month, reducing theft of its pool towels from 4,000 to 750 in a month.