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Westin hotels kick the smoking habit

By MARK ALBRIGHT
Published December 6, 2005

The smoking light flickers out next month in all 77 Westin hotels, including the Westin Innisbrook Golf Resort in Palm Harbor near Tarpon Springs.

Westin is replacing all the linens, deep-cleaning the duct work and trying to purge every smoking-related allergen left lurking in the last 2,400 rooms where smoking was allowed.

Westin becomes the first of what likely will become several hotel chains in North America to go smoke-free.

Hotels nationally have been whittling down the percentage of rooms where smoking is permitted for several years. Many individual hotels went smoke-free. But the chains have debated whether to gather the last of their ashtrays to please nonsmokers or put up a fight for customer choice to keep government from banning smoking as it did in most Florida restaurants.

Westin, a unit of Starwood Hotels and Resorts, which also operates Sheraton, decided to go all the way after research found 86 percent of all hotel guests want smoke-free rooms. Emboldened by eight Westin properties that suffered minimal lost business since ditching the last of their smoking rooms, the chain said 92 percent of its patrons ask for nonsmoking rooms and do not smoke anywhere in the hotel.

Westin executives decided that lingering tobacco odors conflicted with ads that wrap the Westin brand around offering a "clean, comfortable and relaxing" room.

The White Plains, N.Y., chain said properties will set up smoking areas outdoors for guests or employees. At Innisbrook, guests will still be allowed to puff away on outdoor patios or the golf courses, but not inside buildings.

--Mark Albright can be reached at albright@sptimes.com or 727 893-8252.

[Last modified December 6, 2005, 02:15:34]