How Towel Art Adds a Personal Touch to Hotel Rooms

Apps may soon replace hotel phones, walls may be turned into screens, and room service may be delivered by a robot. But it will be very difficult to take the human touch out of hotel towel art.

Towel art, also referred to as towel sculptures or towel origami, are left for hotel guests by housekeepers. The most popular kind of towel art is animals including elephants, swans, puppies, and rabbits.

The trend is most common at resorts in major vacation destinations and onboard cruise ships.

It has an impact into even the most jaded of travelers; even travel blogger Johnny Jet remembers the towel animal he found wearing his sunglasses when he came in.

The pleasant surprise might increase the likelihood of guests' leaving a tip, but hotels now have an even better reason to allot housekeeping time to towel origami.

Guests will undoubtedly post a picture and the name of the hotel on Twitter, Facebook, or Pinterest. This generate social media buzz for the property without hotels spending a dollar of marketing spend.

See some examples towel-inspired statuses below, or for more examples, click through the slideshow above:

Towel art-how fabulous is this! The glasses make the finishing touch, thank you cleaning staff at Ibertol II Mercato pic.twitter.com/7pdZ8vfAhO

— Brigit Egan 🐝 (@Brigitegan) September 26, 2013

When Hotel Room Towel Art Goes Too Far...#potentialhitshows pic.twitter.com/GOlL5ahhr7

— Daniel Pearson (@daniel_pearson) August 3, 2013

https://twitter.com/ddrouin10/status/316651028604936192