The Growing Trend in Smoke-Free Travel

December 21, 2006

The Growing Trend in Smoke-Free Travel
Dec. 21, 2006 –All shops, museums, airports, and train stations in France are going smoke-free. French bars, nightclubs, restaurants and hotels (but not guest rooms) will have to ban smoking by January 2008.

France is joining a growing trend worldwide. More countries are choosing to go smoke-free in recent years, with 15 countries now prohibiting smoking in most public places. Bans are already in place in Ireland, Italy, Norway, Scotland, Sweden, Bhutan and Uganda. Northern Ireland, Iceland and Finland will restrict smoking next year. In November, Hawaii became the 19th U.S. state to go smoke-free.

"It’s a case of policy finally catching up to the science," says Ross Hammond, a spokesman for Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids, another Washington, D.C.-based group that advocates for smoke-free policies globally.

As the Los Angeles Times reports, some hotel chains are banning smoking too. Marriott International took its 2,300 U.S. and Canadian properties smoke-free this fall, says Stephanie Hampton, a Marriott spokeswoman.

"It’s been embraced enthusiastically by most of our guests," she says.

Westin Hotels introduced a smoke-free policy in 2005.

"People are going to begin to expect smoke-free air when they travel," says John Banzhaf III, an executive for an anti-smoking group.

He offers these tips to make travel as smoke-free as possible:

• Ask tour operators for a guarantee that there will be only no-smoking rooms and restaurants on the itinerary.

   

• Verify when making your own hotel reservations that the room and the property are smoke-free.

   

• When you arrive at a hotel at which you have reserved a nonsmoking room, ask to visit the room before accepting the key. If the room smells smoky, it’s easier to change if your luggage has not yet been delivered and you’re not yet in possession of the key.

For more tips, see www.ash.org/intltravel.