How to Find Smoke-Free Hotel Rooms Worldwide

Asia is a tougher sell for non-smoking policies, though it, too, is changing, with growing restrictions on smoking spilling over into hotels. In especially smoky places -- notably Japan -- the norm until recently seemed to be: everyone smokes everywhere all the time.

No longer.

Major travel sites reference hotels in both Asia and Europe, as do commercial sites like Hotelmagician.com, although their coverage in Asia can be skimpy. Hotelmagician, for example, lists smoke-free hotels in the tiny Pacific island nation of Fiji and in Thailand, but not the rest of Asia.

Thailand is home to a voluntary project called the Smoke-Free Hotel Program, launched in 2006 and partly supported by the nonprofit Green Leaf Program and the Tourism Authority of Thailand. Formed to encourage hotels to set aside smoke-free rooms, this modest beginning effort enlists 17 hotels and resorts -- among them the Dusit Thani Hotel in Bangkok and the Paradise Beach Resort Samui -- according to the Thai tourist agency's Web site.

In giant China -- whose 350 million smokers are perhaps one-third of the world's total -- smoking restrictions are growing tougher, by government edict.

Chinese authorities especially want to clear the air in Beijing, which hosts the Olympic Games in August. Beijing has notoriously dirty air, thanks to factory pollution, toxic exhaust from the accelerating number of cars and even sandstorms howling in from the Gobi Desert.

Under new rules set to take effect May 1, Beijing hotels must set aside at least 70% of their rooms as non-smoking, according to the official English-language China Daily.

	Orchard Hotel's Lobby

Elsewhere in Asia, a handful of hotels have reined in smoking on their own. Hong Kong's Evergreen Hotel, located in bustling Kowloon, bills itself as smoke-free, as does Singapore's Orchard Hotel. A 653-room tower located on the city-state's prime shopping boulevard, Orchard Road, the Orchard Hotel bans smoking in its guest rooms and all indoor public areas.