The featured article in the May 2007 issue of the Cornell Hotel and Restaurant Administration Quarterly features an inexpensive and successful way to increase participation by hotel guests in linen-reuse programs.

Many hotel chains have introduced programs that encourage guests to make more than one-time use of their towels. Even though reusing linens saves on energy and chemical use, many guests do not participate.

The article, 'Invoking Social Norms: A Social Psychology Perspective on Improving Hotels' Linen-reuse Programs," was written by Noah J. Goldstein, Vladas Griskevicius, and Robert B. Cialdini, all at Arizona State University. The authors show how applied social psychology can increase guests' participation at no additional expense to the hotel.

Using the typical in-room cards one of the test messages reversed the environmental-partnership model to say that the hotel had already made a donation to an environmental cause and asked the guest to reciprocate by reusing the towels. That increased participation somewhat. Another message incorporated the concept of descriptive norms, which increased participation by around 50 percent.

The featured article is available at no charge from Cornell's Center for Hospitality Research at

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