Straight Talk on Hotel Towel Racks

Over the past decade, our family has stayed in more than a dozen hotels, including several varieties of Hiltons, Marriotts, Sheratons and independently-owned inns in an equal variety of states on both coasts. Regardless of the establishment or location, each had implemented similar green initiatives to conserve water, reduce waste and improve energy efficiency. As guests, we were asked to pitch in by turning off unnecessary lights or lowering our usage of heat or air conditioning when possible. We were happy to oblige, but found one request consistently difficult to accommodate—the reuse of bath towels. Why? Because there was no place to hang them!

To begin with, hotel bath towels are disproportionate in size to the single installed towel rack. Sure, when housekeeping has neatly folded two clean bath towels, hand towels and washcloths with micro precision the presentation is inviting, but once removed and used one bath towel becomes an unwieldy heap that, sadly, ends up on the bathroom floor. Generally, I would pick these up and begin a mission to find an adequate drying location—the backs of chairs, the corner of a vanity mirror, a door knob, but ultimately the towel would end up back on the floor. Time after time, room after room, and even in suites that sleep up to 6 guests, the bathroom had one paltry towel rack. Oddly, in nearly every instance, there was plenty of wall space in the bathroom to add a deluxe length towel rack that would not only hold used towels, but could be used for hanging cosmetic bags too.

And since we’re on the subject of cosmetic bags, why not add a few hooks to the backs of doors or on either side of the vanity? If not needed to hang a toiletry bag, perhaps guests could use them to hang—that’s right—used towels.