Places to Tract a Hotel Room

Statistics show that 25% of all travelers will read the Gideon Bible in hotel rooms and that each Bible has the potential to reach 2,300 people over it’s six-year lifespan. That means a a hotel with over 200 rooms could reach over 460,000 occupants! That is more than the population of Virginia Beach, VA and almost as large as Long Beach, CA..

With that in mind, as a Gideon, whenever I travel and stay in a hotel room, I go through a ritual of placing tracts in various parts of the room, not only for housekeeping to find, but future guests as well. Though I will probably never affect thousands of people, I at least want to do my part to help others to awaken to the truth of the gospel. Here are various places in a hotel room that I leave tracts for people to find.

In the open

The only tract that I want housekeeping to find is the one that I leave out in the open for them to find. With that tract, I write a simple, “Thank You,” and place it on the desk or dresser. I usually place one Spanish tract and one English tract side by side. This way, I try to cover my basis when it comes to the preferred language of housekeeping staff.

In the bible

The second tract I place is in the Gideon Bible that was placed in the drawer by the Gideon’s International. I usually will look for John 3:16 and place it so that the top of the tract just peeks out the top of the bible. I don’t want it to be so noticeable for housekeeping to remove it, but not hidden so that guests will not see it.

In the phone book

The third set of tracts that I place are in the phone book. I place one in the pizza section, one in the abortion section, and one in restaurants or car rental. These are basically the most used areas of the hotel phone book. I tend to tuck them horizontally in the binding crease so that they are seen as pages are being flipped. I usually use “money” tracts here so that as people are flipping through, they see something that looks like a large amount of money.

Under untouched objects in the room

The other tracts I leave are hidden under the phones and coffee pot. I like to leave the phones right where they are just like they were when I enter the room. If they look as if they were not used, housekeeping will not bother with or clean them. But, because of the long cord, many people like to stretch it out and sit in other more comfortable parts of the room. As soon as they pick it up, it is revealed.

Behind the closet iron

The last place I usually leave one is behind the clothes iron. Most hotels come equipped with an ironing board and iron for business-people to iron their shirts, slacks, or skirts. By placing one behind the iron, the tract falls out and floats to the ground. I usually use money tracts in this spot because business people love money.

Other ideas?

Depending on the room you may want to place some in other places like under the bed, between couch cushions, or behind unused pillows on a couch. Some I’ve even tucked WAY behind a dresser drawer, not to be noticed by housekeeping, but definitely noticed by someone who wants to utilize it for their clothes.

Maybe you have some other ideas as to where to tract a hotel room. Let us know in the comments below. We would love to hear from you.