The vice president of hotel operations for a 2,000-room luxury casino hotel faced daily problems with guests smoking tobacco and marijuana in the non-smoking property. Around-the-clock unauthorized smoking hindered his team from delivering a consistent experience for their guests.
The costs of unauthorized smoking in such a large hotel were high. According to a recent industry study about the actual costs of smoking in hotel rooms, a single smoking event can cost as much as $1,000.
The long-lasting damage from smoking incidents further complicated the hotel’s efforts to collect cleaning fees. “We rarely charged guests due to the issues we were having with claims that they did not actually smoke,” said the VP of hotel operations. “Most rooms had a smoke smell, so we really could not enforce anything.”
When smoking occurred in their rooms, the housekeeping staff tried to clean before the next guests arrived by spraying deodorizers and running ozone machines, but with limited effect.
Compounding the costs, guests who smoked often were not charged because their smoking was not detected when they did it and there was no real evidence. “The next guests would check in and complain of the smoke smells, be moved, and be compensated,” said the VP of hotel operations. “Guests who smoked in our rooms knew there were no consequences, so they continued to smoke. It was a never-ending cycle of room changes, compensation, and apologies.”
The hotel operations team knew they had to stop and deter smoking to improve overall customer satisfaction. The casino hotelier turned to the FreshAir Sensor Smoking Detection System with 24x7 monitoring to break the perpetual, negative cycles caused by unauthorized smoking.
With the FreshAir Smoking Detection System, Wi-Fi-enabled devices molecularly monitor each hotel room for tobacco and marijuana smoking. The hotel staff receives immediate Smoking Alerts each time unauthorized smoking occurs.
FreshAir Smoking Alerts are sent to a mobile phone, email and/or front desk computer. The Smoking Alerts are discreet and location-specific, empowering the hotel’s team to respond quickly and proactively.
In addition to the immediate smoking reports the property receives daily and weekly summaries from FreshAir Sensor. Accessible through their FreshAir Client Portal and customizable to each team member’s notification preferences, the reports are accurate resources for hotel staff to access archived Smoking Alerts, charge cleaning fees, and prevent and win chargebacks.
With the FreshAir Smoking Detection System, this casino hotelier reversed the perpetual, negative cycle of unauthorized smoking, missed cleaning fees, extra housekeeping work, poor guest satisfaction, and room changes and extra compensation for unhappy guests in smoked rooms.
