2021 was the fifteenth anniversary of Westin Hotels and Resorts becoming the first hotel chain in 2006 to ban smoking in all their properties in the USA, Canada, and the Caribbean. ¹ Later that same year, Marriott International followed suit, and by 2011 several other prominent hotel chains (eg, Sheraton, Wyndham Hotels and Resorts, and Comfort Suites) had announced similar policies. ² By 2013, four states in the US (ie, Indiana, Michigan, North Dakota, and Wisconsin) had adopted policies to ban smoking in all hotel and motel rooms. ³ Since then, however, progress towards adopting comprehensive state-level smoking bans has been slow. As of July 1, 2021, only three additional states had adopted state-wide smoking bans (Colorado, Connecticut, Vermont), while other states continued to pursue policies permitting smoking in designated smoking rooms. ⁴ Based on decades of research on secondhand smoke (SHS) intrusion in multiunit buildings and the persistent legacy of thirdhand smoke (THS) residue, reluctance to implement comprehensive smoking bans in many hotels continues to create significant exposure risks for guests and employees in hotels without such policies.^5,6

While few states have been willing to pass smokefree legislation for hotels over the past decade, there are now 270 cities throughout the US that have passed smokefree laws at the local level. Similar progress is reflected in the biannual surveys conducted by the American Hotel & Lodging Association (AHLA). ⁷ Their findings indicate that an increasing proportion of hotels have adopted voluntary smoking bans and have reduced the number of designated smoking guest rooms. While 38% of hotels reported being “100% non-smoking” in 2008, this percentage increased to 56% in 2010, 63% in 2014, and 85% in 2016. However, when the AHLA in 2018 redefined “100% non-smoking” as “100% non-smoking building”, only 63% of hotels reported having a 100% non-smoking building, suggesting there was some ambiguity in previous surveys about the definition of “100% non-smoking”, and previous surveys provided an overly optimistic view. Even more sobering is the fact that only 28% of budget hotels and 42% of hotels at interstate locations had a 100% smokefree building in 2018, suggesting that a majority of budget travelers are at risk of exposure to toxic secondhand and thirdhand smoke pollutants.^5,8,9

The existing patchwork of policies across different state and local jurisdictions and hotel brands and chains represents an ambiguous environment for tobacco policies and their implementation. Further complicating this inconsistent policy field is that hotels serve a large and diverse national and international clientele who bring varying expectations about smoking bans and restrictions from their home locations to their travel destinations. Smokers visiting from regions with high smoking prevalence and lax policies may be unfamiliar with and may find it challenging to comply with restrictive smoking policies. Nonsmokers visiting from regions with strict policies and low prevalence may have less tolerance for other hotel guests’ smoking behavior. The recent legalization of recreational cannabis in some jurisdictions and the increase in electronic vaping devices contribute to additional complexity and uncertainty about the interpretation of smoking bans and their implementation. Finally, the economic success of a hotel is driven by high occupancy and turnover rate, virtually guaranteeing that over the course of a year, any particular room may have housed multiple smokers. For instance, with a smoking prevalence of just 15% and an average of 200 different guests per year in a hotel room, the binomial probability that 20 or more smokers occupied a particular room is 98.5%. Such a policy setting creates significant challenges for hotels for informing guests and implementing smoking bans that consistently protect hotel guests and employees.

Violations of hotel smoking bans do not only affect other hotel guests who are exposed to intruding secondhand smoke (SHS) in nearby rooms. They also create exposure risks to future guests because tobacco, electronic cigarettes, and cannabis (TEC) smoke and aerosols leave behind thirdhand smoke (THS) residue that accumulates over time and can linger for years.^{10bibr11-1179173X221124900bibr12-1179173X221124900bibr13-1179173X221124900-14} Previous research has shown that compared to hotels with complete smoking bans, nonsmoking and smoking rooms in hotels that allowed smoking were polluted with THS, and nonsmoking guests staying in a designated smoking room were exposed to tobacco smoke toxicants. ³ SHS and THS exposure not only create health risks for guests and staff, but hotels also incur high costs for cleaning and repairs after guests have smoked in a room (eg, shampooing carpets, keeping rooms vacant). Not surprisingly, a survey of hotel managers in California found that 80.5% of nonsmoking hotels charged a fee or fine if guests smoked in a nonsmoking room, ranging from $20-$1600 (Mean = $168). ¹⁵ A mixed-methods study of hotel management and media coverage of smokefree hotels showed that business considerations, such as cost savings, guest preferences, and competitor actions, were primary factors for implementing smokefree policies. ¹⁶

To better understand how hotel guests experience smoking policies in hotels, we examined guest reviews for information about exposure to SHS or THS smoke from tobacco, electronic cigarettes, and cannabis (TEC). We borrowed the concept of information asymmetry from behavioral economics, considering TEC complaints as a possible result of a disparity between what a hotel claims to offer in terms of protection from exposure to SHS and THS and what guests experience in a hotel. We scrutinized reviews on the independent travel website TripAdvisor, focusing on complaints by nonsmokers who had made reservations in a 100% nonsmoking hotel or for a nonsmoking room in a hotel that also had smoking rooms. We hypothesized TEC-related complaints would be nearly universal and that a majority of complaints would be associated with tobacco rather than cannabis and electronic cigarettes and with THS residue rather than SHS intrusion. Moreover, we hypothesized that hotels offering designated smoking rooms, lower-priced, and lower-star hotels would have more TEC complaints and that early adopters of smoking bans and hotels in communities with lower smoking prevalence would have fewer TEC complaints.