Every summer, the same scene repeats at pools and beaches across Europe and the Mediterranean. Guests set their alarms for 5:30 or 6:00 AM, rush down in their bathrobes, and drape towels over sunbeds they have no intention of using for hours. By 7:00 AM, every lounger is claimed. By 10:00 AM, half of them sit empty while other guests pace the pool deck looking for a place to sit. The sunbed war has begun, and nobody wins.
This phenomenon, sometimes called the towel war, is one of the most widely recognized yet persistently unsolved problems in the hospitality industry. It affects guest satisfaction, strains staff resources, damages online reputations, and represents a massive missed revenue opportunity. Despite all of this, most hotels have never attempted a systematic solution.
The sunbed war refers to the ongoing conflict among hotel and resort guests over access to poolside or beachfront sunbeds. At its core, the problem stems from an informal reservation system that has no enforcement mechanism: placing a towel or personal item on a lounger to claim it.
This system creates an inherent tension. The guest who placed the towel considers the sunbed reserved. The guest who arrives later and finds rows of empty but towel-covered loungers considers the situation unfair. Neither is wrong, and that is precisely what makes the problem so difficult to resolve through social norms alone.
The sunbed war is not limited to budget or mid-range properties. In fact, it is often more intense at luxury hotels and resorts, where guests have higher expectations and feel more entitled to premium amenities. A four-star or five-star guest paying several hundred euros per night expects a guaranteed lounger experience, and when that expectation is not met, frustration escalates quickly.
The towel reservation system is entirely informal. There are no rules, no time limits, and no enforcement. A guest places a towel on a sunbed, and that sunbed is considered occupied, whether the guest is actually present or not. In practice, this means:
Some hotels have tried implementing time-based rules, such as removing towels from unoccupied sunbeds after 30 or 45 minutes. These policies are difficult to enforce consistently, create additional work for staff, and often lead to angry confrontations with guests who return to find their belongings moved. The root of the problem is that there is no reliable way to distinguish between a sunbed that is genuinely in use and one that has simply been claimed with a towel.
The sunbed war creates negative consequences across every stakeholder group at a hotel or resort.
Guests experience frustration whether they participate in early-morning reservations or not. Those who rise early to claim spots lose sleep and start their day with stress rather than relaxation. Those who choose not to participate often find themselves without loungers during peak hours. Both groups leave dissatisfied, and that dissatisfaction frequently shows up in online reviews.
Staff bear the operational burden. Pool attendants, concierge teams, and front desk staff spend significant portions of their day managing sunbed disputes. This ranges from politely asking guests to vacate unreserved loungers, to mediating between guests who both claim the same spot, to fielding complaints from guests who cannot find seating. Every hour spent refereeing is an hour not spent delivering the level of service that justifies premium pricing.
Hotel management faces a structural problem. Sunbed disputes negatively impact guest satisfaction scores, which in turn affect online ratings, repeat bookings, and brand perception. For properties that rely on reputation to maintain occupancy at premium rates, even a small decline in guest experience metrics can have outsized financial consequences.
Most hotels have never generated a single euro of direct revenue from their sunbed fleet.
Perhaps the most surprising aspect of the sunbed war is the revenue opportunity that hides behind it. Hotels invest significantly in their pool and beach infrastructure. Sunbeds, umbrellas, decking, landscaping, and maintenance represent a substantial capital and operating expense. Yet nearly every hotel treats sunbeds as a free amenity, included in the room rate and generating zero direct revenue.
Consider the comparison with other hotel amenities. Spa treatments are booked and billed. Restaurant tables are reserved and monetized. Meeting rooms are rented by the hour. But sunbeds, which occupy premium real estate and are in high demand, operate on a first-come, first-served basis with no booking, no billing, and no data collection.
A property with 100 sunbeds running at 70% occupancy over a 180-day season has over 12,600 potential booking slots. Even modest per-session pricing or premium tier pricing for front-row or cabana-adjacent spots could generate tens of thousands of euros in direct revenue per season. This is revenue that currently does not exist on any hotel balance sheet.
Given the scope of the problem, it is worth asking why the sunbed war has persisted for so long without a scalable solution. Several factors contribute to this inertia:
Cultural acceptance: The towel reservation system is so ingrained in resort culture that many operators view it as an unavoidable part of hospitality. It has always been this way, so the assumption is that it always will be.
Fear of guest backlash: Hotels worry that implementing formal sunbed policies, especially paid booking systems, will upset guests who are accustomed to free, unrestricted access. This concern often prevents properties from even exploring alternatives.
Lack of technology: Until recently, there has been no technology specifically designed to address sunbed management. Hotels could not accurately track real-time occupancy, distinguish between genuine use and towel reservations, or provide a seamless booking experience without significant manual overhead.
Operational complexity: Outdoor environments present unique technical challenges. Pool decks and beaches are exposed to sun, water, sand, and wind. Connectivity is unreliable. Power sources are limited. Building a hardware solution that works reliably in these conditions requires specialized engineering that generic hospitality technology providers have not prioritized.
The hospitality industry is beginning to recognize that the sunbed war is not just an inconvenience but a systemic failure in asset management. The same industry that has embraced property management systems, revenue management platforms, and digital guest experience tools is now turning its attention to the last unmanaged premium asset: the sunbed.
New approaches combine purpose-built hardware with intelligent software to create complete sunbed management platforms. Connected devices attached to individual sunbeds use motion sensors to detect real occupancy, distinguishing between a guest physically present and a towel left behind. RFID authorization systems allow guests to tap a card and confirm their booking, eliminating ambiguity about who has the right to use a specific lounger at a specific time.
Management dashboards give pool and beach teams real-time visibility into their entire sunbed fleet, showing which loungers are occupied, which are booked, and which are available. This data not only eliminates conflicts but also enables revenue optimization, staffing adjustments, and guest experience improvements based on actual usage patterns rather than guesswork.
The shift from chaos to control is not just a technology upgrade. It represents a fundamental change in how hotels think about outdoor amenity management. The sunbed is no longer a passive piece of furniture. It is a bookable, measurable, and profitable asset that deserves the same operational sophistication as a hotel room or a restaurant table.
For hotel operators who have long accepted the sunbed war as an unsolvable problem, the emergence of smart sunbed management platforms offers a clear path forward. The question is no longer whether the problem can be solved, but how quickly leading properties will adopt the tools to solve it.
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