Field Research
When I was trying to find more information from hotels about the need of a product such as the Naso Sense I found very little information online. This forced me to get out of my apartment and interview hotels near me. Overall I asked hotels with 3-5 star rating, located in urban areas in North Eastern America.
In New York I interviewed a representative from the following hotels:
Mariott Residence Inn
Fairfield Inn
Holiday Inn
Gild Hall
Hampton Inn
Club Quarters
Conrad
Omni Parker
In Washington DC I interviewed someone working at a Kimpton Hotel. I also interviewed a a person with hotel industry background based in Toronto, Canada.
The overarching response I received from this sample is that smoking in rooms does occur from time to time, but it isn't that frequent. I didn't receive any specific numerical responses from my questions. This might be due to the fact that I didn't phrase my questions as specific as I should have. However, many other factors could have influenced the responses each interviewee chose to give me. They might have recently started working in the hotel industry. They might have been worried to disclose that the hotel's rooms smelled. Or they might simply not be the ones in charge of this particular issue.
A response I received from the interviews that surprised me is that guests are not the only people smoking in prohibited areas. Employees of the hotel are also a problem.
This reminded me of my parents last trip in NYC. At 5am the entire hotel was avacuated because the smoke alarm rang. The cause for it was that an employee about to begin his shift was smoking a cigarette in the stairwell.
