General procedure most venues follow
Intake and secure the item. Train staff to route found items to the desk quickly. Note who found it, where and when, before the item leaves the floor.
Log the same day. Record category, description, location found, date and who logged it. A photo helps staff recognize the item later without exposing personal details to the public.
Label storage. Shelves, bins or lockers with a location code on every record so anyone on shift can retrieve the item.
Match to private claims. Guests describe what they lost; staff compare that to inventory without a public catalogue. When software is in place, matching runs the moment an item or claim arrives and keeps searching in the background.
Verify ownership. Hold back details only staff should know. Staff confirm a match first; the guest reviews the same details and approves or denies before release. See how to verify a claim.
Return or ship. Pickup with signature when the guest is on site. When they have left, guest-paid labels through USPS, FedEx, UPS or Royal Mail, typically under $15 for a standard return.
Unclaimed outcomes. When your holding period ends, follow your policy for contact attempts, donation, sale or disposal, and record the decision. Boomerang Lost & Found includes unclaimed views and exports; your team still chooses each outcome.
Airports
Terminal lost property is separate from airline baggage tracing. Travelers often file after they fly home, so the claim path must work from anywhere. See how airports return items after guests fly home, the airport industry page, and the airport software guide.
Hotels and resorts
Guests checkout before housekeeping finds the item. Claims need to run after checkout with shipping to home addresses. See the hotel lost and found software guide and software that ships items to guests.
Stadiums and arenas
Event-day volume and section or seat context matter. The Monday after a game is often the crunch. See stadium lost and found after a game, stadiums and arenas, and the stadium software guide.
Theme parks
Items scatter across rides, gates and hotels, and guests leave the property the same day. See theme parks and the theme park software guide.
Running the procedure in Boomerang
Boomerang is software your venue team runs, not a managed desk. Staff log from a photo or short description; AI writes the title and category. Inventory stays private. Matching compares every claim to your stock; staff then the guest confirm. Guests pay for shipping or pick up with signature. KeepSafe for prohibited items runs in the same portal when you use it. See Boomerang Lost & Found and all industries.
No. Your team runs the lost and found desk in Boomerang; we provide the software, onboarding, training, SOPs and signage. Boomerang is the guest experience platform for venues, and it keeps working around the clock. Lost & Found and KeepSafe are its products.
How we evaluated
- Steps reflect common venue practice and Boomerang product pages on this site.
- This is not legal advice. Holding periods and disposal rules vary; confirm local requirements with counsel.
- Competitor details come from each vendor's public website and are checked and updated periodically. Where we're not sure of a capability, we say so.
Competitor details come from each vendor's public website and are checked and updated periodically. Where we're not sure of a capability, we say so.
What else should a buyer ask?
Is Boomerang a managed service?
No. Your team runs the lost and found desk in Boomerang; we provide the software, onboarding, training, SOPs and signage. Boomerang is the guest experience platform for venues, and it keeps working around the clock. Lost & Found and KeepSafe are its products.
Does Boomerang match lost items from photos?
Yes. Staff log an item from a description or a photo, and AI writes the title and category. Guests can add a photo when they file. Matching runs the moment an item is logged or a claim comes in. It reads those photos and descriptions, plus dates, locations, follow-up answers and venue context, and ranks likely matches. Your team confirms every match. Then the guest sees the same details, including the photos, and approves or denies the match.
How does Boomerang's AI matching work?
The moment a guest files a claim or your team logs an item, Boomerang searches your entire inventory. Every item and claim becomes a rich semantic representation from photos, description, category, date lost, date logged, location, and many other structured fields. Descriptions are parsed into tags that enrich the search. Each candidate is scored on dozens of signals, including dates, semantic similarity, and attributes, and likely matches typically surface in seconds. The engine never stops looking: it keeps searching in the background, like a teammate who works around the clock. Answers from Request More Info feed back into the next search. Each venue has its own context, so matching learns your locations and the items you log, and gets sharper the more you use it. It is just as powerful for a single desk as for a global operation: more volume only makes it sharper, because more data tailors matching to that venue. At one of the top 5 theme park operators in the world, logging upwards of 13,000 items a month and thousands of claims a month, the engine finds 9 out of 10 accepted matches their team sends to guests, and keeps taking on more of the work. Quality is measured continuously through evaluations. Staff confirm every match, then the guest confirms, before anything ships.
How long should we keep items?
Venues set their own policy. Many published policies cluster around 30 to 90 days, with longer holds for IDs and wallets. See [how long venues should keep lost items](/questions/how-long-to-keep-lost-and-found-items/).
Do we need a written policy?
A written policy helps staff act consistently. Use the [lost and found policy template](/guides/lost-and-found-policy-template/) as a starting outline, adapted to your venue.
Questions buyers ask before switching
More side-by-side pages live on Compare. Competitor details come from each vendor's public website and are checked and updated periodically. Where we're not sure of a capability, we say so.