Tourists “stealing” stuff

Abstract

Hotel guests are sometimes confused as to what they can take from their hotel room. Passengers are sometimes confused as to what they can take from their flight. When passengers take a flight and hotel guests pay for a room, what items are they entitled to? It is not so clear. This research explores this issue. The economic value of these items can be quite prohibitive and represents a direct economic loss to these tourism businesses. The focus of previous research on theft in the tourism and hospitality industry focuses on tourists being robbed or employees stealing from their employers. This research assesses the self-reported incidence of tourists taking items from hotels and airlines and investigates the relationship between tourists taking both free and not-complimentary items and self-reported ethical tourist behavior. Further, we segment and profile the types of tourists who take items from hotels and airlines. We achieve these research objectives by undertaking a quantitative survey through 538 completed questionnaires captured via an in-person intercept method in commonly frequented tourist hot spots in Hong Kong. The incidence of theft is relatively high for some items, but tourists generally know which items they are entitled to and which they are not. There are three segments of tourists in terms of their self-reported behavior of taking items from hotel rooms and off flights: Honest, Impulsive, and Habituals.