Holiday Inn Publishes Towel Tales

Holiday Inn has wrapped its latest cause-marketing effort in a towel.

Bedtime reading

The hotel chain plays up guests' propensity to pinch its iconic green-striped towel in a new book About the Towels, We Forgive You: Absorbing Tales of Borrowed Towels. The coffee table book traces Holiday Inns' history through stories from guests who have "borrowed" its towels. Holiday Inn will donate proceeds of the book's sales to non-profit Give Kids the World, a resort for seriously ill children.

Holiday Inn held a Towel Amnesty Day in August 2003, donating $1 to Give Kids the World for every story that past guests told about how they used a purloined towel. Holiday Inn collected thousands of stories; the Atlanta-based chain chose several to publish as a second fundraiser for Give Kids the World. Spellbinders, Memphis, TN, produced the book.

The book sells online at Holiday-inn.com/towels for $25 The first thousand people who buy the book get a limited-edition Holiday Inn hand towel. Guests also can tell their own story on the site to trigger a $1 donation to the children's charity.