What's the difference between a four-star and five-star hotel - apart from the cost of the room? Christian Sylt investigates the star rating system and what it really means
A change is sweeping through the revolving doors of Europe's hotels.
Rating systems that give hotels a grade, be it a star or a diamond, are changing from being based on subjective principles such as the inspectors' impression of quality, to having concrete criteria at their core. It is a move which could eventually see the end of star ratings as we know them.
Earlier this year the Italian hotel industry checked in its biggest change for decades. Its rating system had been one of the most subjective in Europe.
However, in February the Italian government published a set of minimum standards which hotels must meet in order to be awarded star ratings.
It leaves little room for subjectivity.
Whereas Italian five-star hotels previously needed to have rooms which were cleaned twice a day, something which in itself requires measurement standards, the new criteria demand that they must be at least 9m2 for single occupancy and 16m2 for double. A five-star hotel must also have a reception which is open 24 hours a day and manned by receptionists who speak at least three foreign languages. In contrast, hotels with one star must have receptions which are open at least 12 hours a day and double rooms measuring 14m2.
Despite being a big change, the new system didn't come as a shock. A similar scheme was introduced in the Italian wine industry several decades ago when mediocre plonk was being mislabelled as premium quality. The government and growers realised that this could kill the long term prospects for the Italian wine industry, and today its standards for labelling are very strict. The goal with the hotel standards is the same: to protect both the integrity of the industry and travellers from zealous hoteliers who have only their conscience to govern how many stars they give themselves.
However, Italy isn't the first country to use such a system for rating hotels. The UK pioneered a method involving common rating criteria in 2007, the catalyst being London's successful Olympic bid. The Games are expected to attract hundreds of thousands of international visitors, making clarity of accommodation classification crucial.
It was long overdue. There is no mandatory grading system in the UK, but both private and public sector bodies make assessments which can be confusing for customers and for hoteliers. Making matters worse, prior to the introduction of the common standards grading system, the UK's three national tourist boards also had different accommodation rating strategies.
Hotels in the VisitScotland and the VisitWales schemes, for example, were judged by slightly different criteria.
The common standards scheme has ensured that the tourist boards use a common system so that visitors travelling through England, Wales and Scotland get a common approach to rating. And although the scheme is voluntary, participating properties get the benefit of being the only ones listed on VisitBritain's website.
Achieving this required getting all sides on board. The scheme's architects were the AA, the RAC, VisitBritain and the British Hospitality Association (BHA) and stars were chosen as the measurement. The aim of the common standards is to cut through confusing systems such as crowns and rosettes which pervade the UK. With common standards, the services and facilities should be the same.
The secret to this harmonisation is pigeon-holing. The new system has key categories which describe accommodation as hotels, guest houses or budget. Sub-divisions describe the property even further depending on its type. So, for example, at the bottom of the hotel sub-category is metro, which is described as being full-service, except dinner, and close to town centre restaurants. Above this are town houses, country houses and, ultimately, hotels which are formal accommodation with a full service.
Each star category has general standards such as at least six bedrooms with en suite or private facilities being required of a one-star property and room service offering drinks, snacks and one meal (breakfast or dinner) in a three-star. Criteria are also set at the most minute levels, such as specifying that one-star hotels are allowed to change sheets once a week, but five-star properties must change them every two days. The standards stretch right down to the type of carpets and china on the hospitality tray.
Critics complain that the quality of a guest's experience cannot be judged by specific amenities, that the tick-box system at the heart of the scheme is stuck in the past and fails to incorporate the varying rates charged across the country. But therein lies the challenge: if hotels resign themselves to meeting grading systems, they must adhere to independent standards irrespective of the price they charge. The criteria for measurement are the key to whether the system accurately grades accommodation.
Michael Hirst, former chairman and chief executive of Hilton International, concurs. He says that the biggest challenges to the accuracy of star rating systems are "consistency of service and agreement on what different types of accommodation units should be offering as standard". The variety of accommodation now on offer puts even greater pressure on a measurement system based on minimum standards.
The past 10 years alone have seen the birth of no-frills budget hotels which may have as many facilities as old-fashioned three-stars but only minimal service. Designer, boutique and themed hotels are now also commonplace and attract guests for reasons other than their facilities.
Hotel industry consultant Melvin Gold says that the influx of new types of hotels has made it tougher to assess accommodation grades. "The new type of hotels have created greater variety in the market and are undoubtedly more difficult to put in pigeon-holes," he says. "Grading systems struggle to cope."
This wasn't a problem when the first hotel rating systems were introduced but, after Michelin started rating restaurants in 1900 in its guidebook, a swathe of similar systems hit the hotel industry. Since then consumers have had to interpret different symbols - crowns, stars, ribbons, rosettes - awarded in different colours by different organisations for different facilities.
Grading guidelines differ widely around the world. Michelin's pan-European Red Guide grants 'pavilions' rather than stars, but even across countries which adhere to the five-star system, criteria aren't always consistent. In Austria the levels of peace and quiet affect the grade and so doors must be solidly sound-proofed to achieve top ratings. Greece rates hotels in grades from E to A, with L for luxury, based on criteria such as facility size. And France finally brought its system in line with other countries earlier this year when it introduced a five-star rating which it had lacked for decades - the fact that the Ritz was previously awarded the same four stars as the top Holiday Inns was enough to show the holes in France's rating system.
The grading systems are so disparate that it seems tough to imagine they could ever be harmonised across Europe, let alone worldwide, yet this is exactly what was planned in the late 1990s. However, the proposed scheme to establish worldwide hotel classification standards ended up being shelved after opposition from the International Hotel & Restaurant Association (IH&RA) on the grounds of being impractical and unfeasible.
Hirst says that the biggest obstacle to a pan-European system is "getting agreement from so many different countries. Expectations differ from one country to another. But it could be possible in time." Robert Barnard, partner for hotel consultancy services at PKF is more sceptical. "It is difficult enough to impose common standards across one country. It would be harder to impose on so many countries which have varied rating systems and political environments," he says.
Trevor Ward, managing director of consultancy firm W Hospitality, summarises the problem. "A 'product' like a hotel cannot be commoditised and categorised, unless it is at the 'cookie-cutter' budget end of the market. The totality of the product is so complex that a hotel's quality is much more one of personal perception than of empirical measurement."
The luxury consortium The Leading Hotels of the World has created what many see to be a global standard purely based on quality. It has a 1,500-point checklist, including the number of rings it takes reception to answer the phone and the time between an inspector finishing a drink in the bar and being offered another. However, Leading is ultimately a marketing vehicle for hotels and its members must pay for the privilege. They have to foot an initiation fee of $50,000 and an annual marketing fee of several hundred dollars per room, increasing by four per cent annually. LHW even takes a 'success fee' amounting to 10 per cent of room reservation revenue.
Organisations such as the AA and Kiwi Collection have created alternatives - guides to the top hotels which do not have to pay for entry. These usually just carry factual details about the services on offer so the reader is still none the wiser about the quality of the hotels. However, hotels don't always need to pay to broadcast their reputation.
"Online reviews are becoming increasingly important and so is the internet as a research tool," says Gold. "You know what another customer thought and very frequently whether those issues are likely to affect you."
Online reports and those in guidebooks such as Zagat's and Andrew Harper's Hideaway Report can have wide variations in their opinions but, if the majority concur, then they can be a useful tool in drawing a conclusion.
"Being informed that it is three-, four- or five-star is less relevant than reading what people think about the hotel - see such sites as TripAdvisor or HotelChatter - and knowing about the brand," says Ward. Gold echoes this, saying that "these 'brands' stand for something in consumer eyes, as a promise of quality in terms of facilities and service." Hirst adds that "in the end many hoteliers will argue that their brand conveys to customers most about their standards."
However, the star system has become so ingrained in the industry that it would be tough to shake off. It is also a source of revenue in its own right with many corporate travel buyers being briefed only to book groups into properties with a certain star rating. Nevertheless, the significance of stars seems to be ebbing. "If a hotel doesn't like its rating it doesn't push it and uses marketing to promote its features regardless of star rating," says Hirst.
"If the hotel is good, and has done its marketing correctly, I doubt the loss or gain of a star means that much any more," says Ward. Gold agrees that the bottom line impact of a star is negligible. "In most cases the star grading is a marketing tool or a mandatory requirement and does not directly impact on financial performance - the market does that and if the quality is not up to scratch then the clientele tend to work it out for themselves."
This is reflected in the results of an ORC International survey earlier this year of 5,000 consumers which showed that value for money (33 per cent), quality service (14 per cent), a good night's sleep (nine per cent) and general cleanliness (eight per cent) have the biggest impact on satisfaction.
Accordingly, it could be argued that simply knowing the level of facilities on offer, through a rating system based on common standards, is enough - the star rating is irrelevant. Indeed, earlier this year John Brennan, chief executive of Jurys Inns, called for the star rating system to be scrapped for this very reason. He argues that although when the public first began using hotels in greater numbers in the 1940s and 50s, a system of sharing basic information about the type of accommodation was essential, "that era is now passed into ancient history, just like the Fawlty Towers type hotels it was designed to protect visitors from."
However, if the rating scheme is scrapped, and we are simply left with knowing the common standards that hotels measure up to, are we any closer to finding out their quality? Ironically, this is such a subjective matter that grades may never be able to reveal it accurately.
So, as the types of hotels increase in number and as technology makes guest reviews easier to access, we edge ever nearer to the day when the star system finally checks out.