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Westin Hotels Goes Smokefree
Upscale chain brings clean air to all of its 77 properties
Parts excerpted from USA Today,
12/4/05
The new year will ring
in the USA's first smoke-free major hotel chain.
Westin Hotels &
Resorts will announce today that it is snuffing out smoking in all
rooms, restaurants, bars and public areas at its 77 U.S., Canadian,
and Caribbean properties starting in January. Guests may smoke only
in outdoor areas.
The policy reflects "a
demand from guests for a smoke-free hotel experience," says Sue
Brush, Westin senior vice president. "Nobody likes to walk into a
smoky guest room — not even smokers." Westin research shows that 92%
of its guests request a smoke-free room.
The no-smoking trend —
evident in the growing number of city and state ordinances clearing
the air in offices, bars, and restaurants — is prompting more hotels
to go smoke-free:
- Six Westins
currently forbid smoking.
- The Comfort Inn in
New York City's Times Square went smokefree three years ago.
Occupancy rates have set records, with the hotel almost always
being fully occupied.
- About 80% of
California's Joie de Vivre boutique-hotel chain (28 total
properties) are now smoke-free.
- All five properties
in California's Woodside Hotels & Resorts group, including the
Napa Valley Lodge, have banned smoking since 2000.
In 2004, the Topaz
Hotel in Washington, D.C., became the first lodging in the Kimpton
chain to provide only smokefree guest rooms. The number of smokers
who gripe when put in a non-smoking room is "small compared to the
number of people who were complaining about being put in a smoking
room" when the hotel was fully booked, says Topaz general manager
David Hill. "It's a huge weight off the shoulders of our (customer)
service staff. I will never go back."
No-smoking rooms also
need less cleaning and repair of burned furnishings. To prepare for
the new era, Westin's 2,400 U.S., Canadian and Caribbean smoking
rooms will be deep-cleaned and get new air filters.
For a big chain to
make such a major policy shift is "very cutting-edge," American
Hotel & Lodging Association President Joseph McInerney said in a
statement. "The industry is sure to take notice."
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