Posted on 12/06/2005 1:19:45 PM PST by neverdem
ASSOCIATED PRESS
WHITE PLAINS, N.Y. -- A major hotel chain is going smoke-free next month and will add $200 to the bill of anyone who violates the policy, an executive said Monday.
Westin Hotels & Resorts is banning smoking indoors and poolside at all 77 of its properties in the United States, Canada and the Caribbean, said senior Vice President Sue Brush. Smokers will have to go to a designated outdoor area, she said.
Enica Thompson, spokeswoman for the American Hotel & Lodging Association, said Westin is the first major American chain to go smoke-free and predicted that "many of the other hotel chains will probably want to see how it works out for Westin" before following suit.
Eight Westin hotels were already smoke-free, and at least 5 percent of the rooms at the others had been set aside for nonsmokers, Brush said. But market research found that 92 percent of Westin's guests were requesting nonsmoking rooms, and some of those who couldn't get them were "quite upset," she said.
Brush said customers will be advised about the policy at check-in. If a guest violates the rule - "when we can observe it by smelling it or whatever" - a $200 fee will be added to the bill.
"It's really a cleaning fee," she said. The 2,400 smoking rooms in the chain are undergoing deep cleaning and air purifying before the Jan. 1 changeover, "and once you smoke in there you've violated that entire environment and we have to clean it all over again."
The smoking ban will apply to hallways, lobbies, and restaurants, except for the eight restaurants that are run by outside companies and not under Westin's control, Brush said. "They will be invited to participate," she added.
The policy will not extend to Westin's overseas hotels or to other chains, such as Sheraton, that are under the same parent company, Starwood Hotels & Resorts Worldwide Inc. Westin was the brand that "had the least amount of smokers to begin with," Brush said.
She said there might be a dip in business at the beginning of the year as smokers go elsewhere, but Westin expects to quickly replace that business with travelers favoring the new policy.
"I don't think it will be a net loss," she said. "It should be a net gain."
Jacque Petterson of San Antonio, Texas, who maintains an Internet list of smoke-free hotels in the United States, said, "This is just wonderful. So often you go to a place and the nonsmoking rooms are all taken or the smoking rooms and the nonsmoking rooms are mixed up and the smoke spreads. You're giving people a place to go without having to worry."
On the Net:
Westin Hotels & Resorts, http://www.westin.com
List of smoke-free hotels, http://www.smoke-freehotels.com
Old news, Westin Boycott is already underway.
Smoke Gnatzies Ping
Good for them.
Like hell-- take me for two bills and you're gonna have to have a lot more proof than that.
If I were a smoker I simply wouldn't be a customer anymore, eh?
Amen! And, being a non-smoker, I'm now more apt to give them my business.
It's simply an economic decisions... if you think you can attract more customers than you will lose by enacting a smoking ban, then you do enact it.
Wonderful, the market rules. Yee ha.
Ethical Concerns on Face Transplant Grow
FReepmail me if you want on or off my health and science ping list.
I certainly support their right to operate their hotels as they see fit in this free market.
I hope that they will understand if I take my money and business elsewhere, decline to use and refuse to attend functions at their facilities and generally despise them for their self-righteous snottery.
"Back of the bus", and separate rooms isn't good enough, huh?
Why not just ship us all back to where we came from?
Carnival Cruise Lines went with a smoke-free ship.......it lasted less than a year...we shall see.
With that said, it's a private business, I just won't do buiness with them, very simple.
Please note, however, all of their other hotel chains, including Sheraton, are not going this way. Talk about elitism.........Westin is the top of the line of their stable of hotels.
they've lost our business, and a lot of others too i'm sure, huh?
It's their business...run how they please...
With the price of a room at a Westin - those staying there are not going to notice an additional $200. That's a couple of beers or splits of wine from the room mini bar.
"Brush said customers will be advised about the policy at check-in."
Fat lot of good its going to do you then. How about notifying you of the policy when the reso is made?
I'm a smoker and I have no problem with it -- it's far better than the government forcing them to do it.
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