Briefs: Sheraton Hotels snuffs out smoking
WHITE PLAINS, N.Y. -- Sheraton Hotels & Resorts and Four Points by Sheraton Hotel brands will ban smoking at more than 300 hotels and resorts throughout the United States, the Caribbean and Canada.
The new policy follows one implemented at Westin Hotels & Resorts, which became smoke-free in 2006. Westin and Sheraton are owned by Starwood Hotels & Resorts.
Some 8,000 rooms at the hotels will be cleaned, including treatments for air conditioning, walls, rugs, upholstery and hard surfaces. Smoking also will be banned in public areas in the hotels but there will be a designated outdoor area at each property for guests who smoke. There are already 70 Sheraton and Four Points by Sheraton hotels in the U.S., Canada & Caribbean that are smoke-free. Both hotel brands expect to be completely smoke-free in the U.S. and Canada by Dec. 31.
CALIFORNIA:Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger is heading a cast of California food and wine celebrities in a new tourism ad campaign.
The campaign focuses on a new Web site, http://www.land ofwineandfood.com, and stems from a partnership between the California Wine Institute and the California Travel and Tourism Commission.
The TV ad features a number of food and wine stars, including top chef Thomas Keller of the French Laundry restaurant in the Napa Valley and vintner Andrew Firestone, who also appeared on ABC's ''The Bachelor.'' The spot ends with a shot of Schwarzenegger and his wife, Maria Shriver, sitting at a restaurant overlooking the coast.
JAMAICA:KINGSTON -- Jamaica plans to tap into the thriving market for religious-oriented tourism to invigorate the island's sagging economy, government officials and business leaders said.
A new convention center, to be built by 2009, will attract some of the millions of travelers who attend religious conferences outside of their home countries, said Tourism Minister Edmund Bartlett.
The global religious tourism market is an $18 billion-a-year industry with some 300 million travelers, according to the Colorado-based World Religious Travel Association.
VIRGINIA:WILLIAMSBURG -- For the third straight year, Colonial Williamsburg recorded an increase in ticket sales.
Ticket sales in 2007 rose by 5 percent to 780,000, the historic attraction reported. It is the same percentage gain posted in 2006. Last year also saw strong gains in donations and Williamsburg's endowment, which rose 5 percent to $816 million. The Colonial Williamsburg Foundation had 118,000 donors nationwide contribute a total of $14.8 million, a 5 percent increase from 2006.
: WASHINGTON, D.C.:WASHINGTON -- The Smithsonian's National Museum of American History is delaying its reopening from this summer to the fall.
Museum Director Brent Glass said the museum has received inquiries from visitors making travel plans, and wanted to provide them with a more realistic time frame for the reopening. An exact date has not been set.
The museum closed in the fall of 2006 for an $85 million renovation. Some of its most popular artifacts, such as Dorothy's ruby slippers from ''The Wizard of Oz,'' are on display at the nearby National Air and Space Museum during construction.
AP