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.

Developing a framework for unethical consumer behaviour: a qualitative study in two countries

“…That is consistent with the previous studies’ findings (Gill et al. , 2002; Pratt, 2022). Like many cases in the grocery store, the thefts included light and easy-to-carry items such as towels, a teapot, a coffee pot, spoons, forks and other items that could easily be stolen.…”

“Souvenir Shopping is for Schmucks!”: Exploring Tourists’ Deviant Behavior Through the Items They Bring Back

“…While scholars have explored a surprising array of customer deviance (see Reynolds and Harris 2009), tourists’ memento accumulation has been comparatively neglected. In contrast, less extreme, more “mundane” deviance, such as misdemeanors or merely ethically questionable behaviors, have been overlooked (Pratt 2020). Our study contributes to debate through its focus on a single form of tourist behavior (memento accumulation), uncovering an array of actions that range from the entirely legitimate acquisition of souvenirs, to acts constituting grand larceny.…”

“…Exploring the more subtle side of tourist misbehavior is important, because it is more clandestine than obvious misbehaviors, yet is widespread (Fullerton and Punj 2004); moreover, it has often been ignored by scholars (Pratt 2020). Its prevalence, however, has important business and environmental implications.…”

Domestic Tourism challenges: Tourist misbehavior

“…Air passengers remove items that belong to the airline from the flights them catch. The American Hotel and Lodging Association estimates that theft can costs hotels US$100 million a year (Pratt, 2020). Customer misbehavior, dysfunctional customer behavior are other terms of misbehavior in past literature (Daunt & Harris, 2011;2012); deviant customer behavior (Uriely, Ram and Malach-Pines, 2011), and customer badness behavior (Yi and Gong, 2006).…”