Copyright 2005 Times Newspapers Limited
The Times (London)

November 5, 2005, Saturday

SECTION: Features; Travel; 6

LENGTH: 758 words

HEADLINE: Cigarette, anyone?

BYLINE: Oliver Bennett

BODY:
It's banned in Bhutan, off the menu in Italy. But breathe easy, says Oliver Bennett, the serious smoker still enjoys a host of options

A FEW years ago in Syria I was enjoying supper with my tour group in a Damascus restaurant when cheers went up from a nearby table. We turned to look. A child of about 2 was being ceremoniously given his first nargile -a hubble-bubble pipe - and his doting father was beaming with paternal pride.

It was a scene that would have caused pandemonium in the US or the UK, and illustrates the gulf in global smoking mores. Here, as we await Patricia Hewitt's Health Bill -first a partial ban from which private clubs and pubs sans grub will be excluded, then (probably) a total ban in enclosed public places -the smoker is becoming increasingly marginalised. In some other parts of the world, however, the smoker is king.

Smoking strongholds are falling all the time. Italy, long thought of as a great smoking nation, has banned smoking in public places, including restaurants, clubs and bars, as have Norway and Ireland.

Nor is the anti-smoking movement solely in the West. This year, the Himalayan kingdom of Bhutan became the first country to wholly ban smoking and Tanzania has passed laws against public smoking. So are smokers feeling so besieged that they are making holiday decisions according to whether they can indulge or not? If people decide on where to holiday according to where the booze is cheap, plentiful and tolerated by the authorities, isn't there an argument the same will go for fags? With 20 cigarettes costing more than £5 in the UK, isn't it a major plus to the holiday if you can smoke a pack for £1?

Simon Clark, of Forest, the pro-smoking organisation, thinks that freedom to smoke will become a deciding factor of holiday choices. "There are still a lot of smokers, and they represent a big consumer group," he says. "And the issue of smoking and travel comes up frequently. We had a call from a woman in America who was going to go to Ireland, but wanted to know the extent of the ban. When I told her, she said: 'OK, I'm off to Bulgaria'."

While smoking does not yet seem to be a "dealbreaker", an ABTA spokesman has heard of companies proposing specialist smokers' tours. "But nothing more than rumour," he says. "We do still hear about air-rage incidents due to people not being allowed to smoke, though. They run at about one a month." Gordon Mott, executive editor of Cigar Aficionado magazine, says: "I am sure that as restrictions become greater, people will start to make travel decisions around them. But I haven't seen much evidence yet."

Smokers still have a lot of smoker-friendly holiday options, even close to home.

"Spain and Portugal are still places where smoking is part of the culture," Clark says. As is Eastern Europe.

"My wife is from Slovakia and the war against smoking hasn't reached there yet," says Sean Gabb, a smoking rights activist. "And there's obviously Russia, which is a remarkably free country." Most of Africa, India, China, Japan: all are still smokers' worlds, although the weed in these places is mostly for male consumption.

So, where should tobacco fans go? Well, Cuba, for starters. "All the people I know who go to Cuba are deeply interested in the cigar industry," says Simon Chase, of Hunters & Frankau, cigar importers. "One visitor said, 'it would be like going to Ireland and not drinking'."

Chase believes that there may be a small tourism market emerging of refugees from smoke-unfriendly countries. "Estonia offers cigar jaunts that appear to be popular," he says, adding that there is also a small cigar tourism market in Honduras, Nicaragua and the Dominican Republic, where, as in Cuba, there is also a colourful ancillary market in cigar-rolling demonstrations, factory visits and souvenirs. At this year's World Travel Market -the tourism industry trade fair to be held this month in London -the Dominican Republic stand will give out cigars alongside chocolate and other produce.

Some countries, such as Honduras, have even tried specialist cigar excursions. "It wasn't the Honduras Government but the private sector," emphasises a spokesman for the Honduran embassy. "The Government would not promote something harmful to health."

Even so, you can see the appeal for a bunch of cigar buddies: hole up in a hotel, drink fiery rum, and smoke. And as one function of a holiday is to deliver something that you can't get at home, the small smoking tourism sector may well grow.