Will Westin’s new non-smoking policy spread to other chains?
That’s what this article on hotel-online predicts. With Westin’s much-heralded announcement yesterday, nonsmokers of the world rejoiced. But for meeting planners whose attendees include a large contingent of smokers (granted, a circumstance that gets rarer all the time) and for those who plan international meetings, I can’t help but wonder if this would entail excluding Westin and others that may follow suit from consideration. I know that the restaurant bans haven’t turned out to have hurt them much, and smoker attendees are pretty used to going outside at convention centers in the U.S. But this seems a little different to me.
Related Topics: Hospitality news
December 6th, 2005 at 6:44 pm
No question other chains will adopt this, but not in every brand. I can’t imagine citywide stalwarts like Hilton or Marriott or Sheraton branded properties doing this. But might their brands like Embassy Suites or LeMeridien or JW Marriott or Ritz-Carlton? Sure. While they may be cutting out 22% of their potential market, they’d be making the 78% remaining much happier. Not that dumb a decision.
But there will still be smoking rooms for citywides for a long, long time yet. Once the non-smoking trend takes full hold across more brands, being smoker-friendly could as much a selling point for some properties as non-smoking is now for Westin. Somebody’s going to take care of those 22%.
December 6th, 2005 at 7:18 pm
I don’t know, though. The airlines didn’t take that “somebody’s going to take care of those 22 percent” to heart: Once one banned smoking on all flights, the others followed, at least in the U.S. It’ll be interesting to see what happens.
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