Naughty Hotel Behavior: Have You Done It?

The worst thing travelers do in a hotel: 60% admitted to stealing food from the breakfast buffet.

When travel booking site Hipmunk asked 1,000 travelers to list their nastiest hotel behavior, pocketing pastries proved to be the biggest transgression.

Obviously none of those interviewed were rock stars. While I definitely don’t condone trashing hotel rooms, at least that conduct comes with a certain bad boy energy that filching a mini-box of cereal simply lacks.

The next most prevalent naughty act confessed to exudes more drama: 37% admitted to sneaking in an unregistered guest for the night. This no-no demands planning and stealth as does using a property’s pool when not staying at the hotel, admitted to by 17% of travelers. Some 29% of respondents owned up to pinching toiletries from the maid’s cart, making that the third most common misdeed. What about “accidentally” packing the towels and robes? 12% fessed up.

To find out which nationalities use the five finger discount the most (not counting stuffing toiletries into their carry-ons), Hotels.com surveyed 5,000 travelers.

Nationalities admitting to stealing hotel items:

• 73% of those from Argentina
• 71%, Singapore
• 70%, Spain
• 68%, Germany
• 67%, Ireland
• 59%, Russia
• 59%, Mexico
• 57%, Italy
• 56%, Japan
• 53%, USA