Smoke-Free Hotel Rooms

Posted by Bridget Lux Oct 16, 2006

According to a recent J.D. Power and Associates study, nearly 70 percent of European hotel guests prefer that the entire hotel be smoke-free. Many are tired of hotel rooms that are “smoke-free” and wreak of smoke from days gone by.

Other than smoke-free buildings, guests surveyed found a complimentary breakfast to be the most important amenity - at least in France, Germany, Italy, Spain and Sweden. European hotel guests also rank high-speed internet access as a priority.

Having stayed at a number of hotels throughout Western Europe, smoke-free and internet-access are not two amenities that would have come to mind. Perhaps there will be a hotel revolution? Perhaps I just stayed in the wrong sorts of hotels. Whatever the case, I wholeheartedly agree with those surveyed. I’m definitely in favor of smoke-free hotels (restaurants, bars, basically, they could ban smoking altogether and I’d be OK with it), and internet access in the hotels would have been a huge help while traveling.

The question is: Will hotels take this survey seriously? Will they make changes or is this just an exercise in pie-in-the-sky dreaming? Hopefully, they’ll take counsel from what was learned when restaurants and bars in the U.S. banned smoking: It didn’t hurt the business. In many cases, it actually helped. And if it doesn’t affect the bottom line, why allow it? Obviously there are numerous ways a smoking ban will help a hotel, but what are the disadvantages to such a ban? Sure, you’re going to have some upset guests. And maybe, much like the airline that is starting in Germany for smokers, there will be a few hotels that stick with allowing smoking and house the smokers.

Although I’m not expecting any sort of swift action on the part of European hotel operators, it’s good to know that at the very least, these types of surveys are being conducted. We’ve come a long way, baby.