>Wonder if it's a case of one guy (say, the General Manager of the hotel) who's a smoker standing in the way of progress.

Interesting. But I'd bet that if its anything like that, it goes up higher than the individual hotel.

You also might find this amusing (or alarming!)
http://www.michaelmoore.com/books-films/stupidwhitemen/onlinechapters/part01.php