Hospitality Industry: UK Hotel Update

Hotels enforce smoking ban in rooms

June 29, 2007
Carolyn Firestone

The smoking ban has encouraged several British hoteliers to rush through plans to make all rooms smoke-free, as well as bars and restaurants

Britain’s hotel chains are piggybacking the smoking ban by introducing a no-smoking rule in rooms as well as bars and restaurants.

Travelodge, Premier Travel Inns and Malamaison are among those that will banish smoking from rooms and public areas by the beginning of 2008, forcing visitors to stand outside to light up.

While saying the move is down to public demand, the chains will also save millions in cleaning, as well as fabric repair and replacement costs.

“Overwhelmingly our customers wanted us to take the smoking ban very seriously and go beyond the banning of smoking in public areas,” said Travelodge’s director of communications, Greg Dawson.

Hilton Hotels also plans to virtually eliminate smoking from its 75 UK hotels following the July 1 ban, keeping just one per cent of rooms available for smoking guests. “It is still important that our customers have a choice,” said Hilton communications director Katrina Jones.

Three of Hilton’s newer hotels, Hilton London Canary Wharf, Hilton London Tower Bridge and Hilton Manchester Deansgate, have already been operating smoke-free since their openings in 2006.

“It’s had no detrimental effect on business. People accept it and they are happy to go outside or out front of the hotel if they wish to smoke,” said Bernadette Gilligan, general manager of Hilton Manchester Deansgate.

Travelodge, which plans to open 40 hotels in 2007, will ensure that all new hotels will be smoke-free from opening. For its pre-existing hotels, it is expected the ban will be implemented by January, 2008.

In a survey conducted last month by Travelodge, 92 per cent of 4,000 customers polled said they’d choose Travelodge based on its non-smoking policy. While 12 per cent of their customers are themselves smokers, more than half said they’d still prefer a ban. “Just because you smoke doesn’t mean you want to stay in a smoky room,” said Dawson.

Premier Travel Inn will also remove smoking rooms from all 480 of its UK hotels by January, 2008. Other hotel chains such as Malmaison, which owns 10 UK hotels and Lavender Group, which owns five, also plan to go completely smoke-free in response to the ban.

Apex Hotels, which has already had to comply with regulations from the smoking ban in its Scotland hotels have opted to limit rather than eliminate the number of smoking rooms in their hotels due to decreasing customer demand, according to Lorna Lee, the group marketing manager. “Whilst not everyone’s doing it at at the moment. I think everyone will follow in time,” said Dawson.
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Have Your Say:
I’ve made a list of all hotels planning to go completely smoke free (including bedrooms) and will make a point of not patronising these chains when abroad. The list will be widely distributed to my travelling friends. We intend to boycott en masse and permanently.
Lori
London