Marriott Switching To “Made In The USA” Bath Mats In All U.S. Hotels

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Soon, every time you step out of the shower and onto a bath mat to towel off at a Marriott hotel in the U.S., all that fabric you touch will have been made in America. The hotel company says it’s the first in the hospitality industry to move to exclusively U.S.- made towels and bath mats in all its 3,000 U.S. locations.

After years of being manufactured overseas in Jordan by Standard Textile, the Maryland-based hotel chain says its towels will be produced stateside. Standard Textile will be moving production here, creating about 150 U.S. jobs at two manufacturing plants, as well in the company’s Cincinnati headquarters.

Marriott will be buying 2.6 million bath towels and 4.9 million hand towels domestically each year, with towels going out of circulation every two or three years, Gary Heiman, president and chief executive of Standard Textile told the Washington Post.

Making this change will eliminate about 300 ocean container shipments annually, Marriott says.

“We believe our guests will appreciate knowing that even simple items they use every day in our hotels represent progress for the U.S. economy,” said Executive Chairman J.W. “Bill” Marriott, Jr. in the company’s press release. “We also hope this sends a message to other businesses that buying locally can make business sense.”

Speaking of other businesses, we reached out to the other major hotel chains operating in the U.S., including Intercontinental Hotels Group (Holiday Inn Express), Choice Hotels (Quality Inn), Hilton Worldwide (Hilton Hotels, Hampton Inn), Wyndham Worldwide (Days Inn, Super 8), Hyatt Hotels, and Starwood Hotels & Resorts (which was recently purchased by Marriott and operates Westin, Sheraton, W and St. Regis brand), to ask where their textiles are made. We’ll update this post when we hear back.

by Mary Beth Quirk via Consumerist