SAINT CHARLES, MO.—FreshStay is adding 20 to 30 properties per month to its rapidly growing network of smoke-free lodging establishments. Launched in January, the www.freshstay.com online directory of hotels offering better indoor air products and practices already has more than 225 nonsmoking member properties, including an increasing number of boutique hotels, extended-stay properties and resorts coast to coast.
Ray Burger, president of Saint Charles, Mo.-based Pineapple Hospitality, revealed the states and cities that are most active in the nation’s growing smoke-free lodging movement as follows:
Top Five States in FreshStay Directory
California—47 smoke-free lodging properties in 28 cities;
Texas—15 smoke-free lodging properties in nine cities;
Washington—15 smoke-free lodging properties in seven cities;
Florida—11 smoke-free lodging properties in 10 cities; and
Missouri—nine smoke-free lodging properties in seven cities.
Top 10 Cities in FreshStay Directory
Seattle—seven nonsmoking lodging properties;
San Francisco—six nonsmoking lodging properties;
San Diego—five nonsmoking lodging properties;
Boston, Dallas, Los Angeles, New York City and Spokane, Wash.—four nonsmoking lodging properties each;
and Anaheim, Calif. and St. Louis—three nonsmoking lodging properties each.
Historic Upham Hotel Goes 100 Percent Nonsmoking
The 135-year-old Upham Hotel in Santa Barbara, Calif.—the oldest continuously operating hotel in Southern California—went completely smoke-free in 2003.
“We made some of our 50 guestrooms nonsmoking in 2000 and just kept adding to the smoke-free inventory as demand and popularity for such an environment grew and grew … to the point where it made sense to go completely smoke free three years ago,” says Marjorie Robertson, Upham Hotel’s events coordinator.
Jan Martin Winn, the property’s general manager for the past 15 years, says the move to smoke free was guest driven. The conversion required the removal of ashtrays, the elimination of bedspreads in favor of new duvet covers, the replacement of carpet and soft goods, thorough room cleaning and deodorizing. Signage and notification changes were made throughout the property and in print and online marketing materials, driving home the smoke-free nature of the establishment and related benefits to guests and the environment.
“There are a lot of reasons to make the move to completely smoke free, but more satisfied guests is the No. 1 driver for us,” Martin Winn says. “One of our frequent visitors who had always stayed in our nonsmoking rooms had not been here for about a year and was absolutely thrilled that the entire property had been converted to nonsmoking. That guest’s reaction is the rule, not the exception to the rule, for us.”
The Web site www.freshstay.com awards hotels guaranteeing nonsmoking rooms at the point of reservation two pineapples, while 100-percent smoke-free hotels automatically earn three pineapples. Beyond that, the more fresh indoor air products and practices a property has in place, the more pineapples it earns. In the near future, the Web site will list and rate hotels that offer enhanced accommodations including being cleaned with Green Seal-certified products, having walls covered with low-odor, low-VOC paints, and offering improved air and water filtration and allergen-barrier products.
