International Hotel Classification Systems

About Hotel Rating Systems

All things considered, there is no such thing as real international hotel ratings system. Rating systems, to the extent that they're not a figment of one's imagination, are typically cooked up in some government tourist office, by some semi-official association, or even from the hoteliers themselves. The result is that they lack any real independence or that buzz word I learned in my days studying public policy, "probity."

Because of the obvious subjectivity of the system, hotel ratings vary greatly. A five star in Paris will be different than a five star in Dallas and both will different from a five star in Acapulco. In fact, France doesn't even have five stars, their system only goes up to four stars. I think you can already see what I mean. In fact, as a tourism tour-de-force myself, I think I'm going to start my own all new system that doesn't even have stars, but rather uses the marsh mellow shapes found in a box of Lucky Charms. So, the Camino Real Hotel, for example, instead of five stars would receive pink hearts, yellow moons, orange stars, green clovers, and blue diamonds.

Not only can ratings vary greatly between countries, but they can vary greatly within the same country over time. Some countries take things seriously and subject hotel facilities to renewed scrutiny every couple years, like law and order loving Germany for example. Other countries, particularly in my beloved Latin America God bless their hearts, have a less than, shall we say, active policy of official review so that a hotel that received a four star rating back, say, in the 1970s can still boast four stars despite having that same green shag carpeting in the lounge in 2005.

In Mexico, the ratings originate from the Secretary of Tourism and are full of enthusiasm and real self-starters, but in my humble opinion sort of bunk. They have a seven level system starting at Luxury Class (Las Brisas, Acapulco Princess, and Pierre Marques), then Grand Tourism Class (Camino Real, Mayan Palace, Quinta Real, Park Royal, Hyatt Regency, and Costa Club), then five star class (Calinda Beach, Continental Emporio, Copacabana, El Presidente, Elcano, Fiesta Americana, and Villa Vera), four star (way too many to name), three star (ditto), etc. As a rule of thumb, deduct one star at minimum to bring things back into orbit.

In other countries, you have groups rating hotels each with its own rating system. In Britain, for example, the English Tourist Board, the Royal Auto Club, and the Auto Association only recently agreed to harmonize their ratings.

There is also a sketchy overlapping patchwork of input from such private sector rating bigwigs as AAA, Michelin, and I imagine the Brit's RAC and AA (which stands for Automobile Association and not Alcoholics Anonymous) have put in their two cents worth somewhere. Others include Relais and Chateaux ( I'll let you guess where they're from) and Leading Hotels of the World who include hotels that meet their requirements.

Private sector systems are not disinterested observers either as they receive money at both ends, for listing a hotel and for their reservation services. All in all, they are still probably better than government ratings because they do have a direct financial interest in looking credible.

Interestingly, the WTO (World Trade Organization) and the ISO (International Standards Organization) got together in 1988 in an attempt to harmonize hospitality standards, however they didn't get very far. I hear the meetings broke down when opposing sides left the table over the contentious issue of whether you had to have an ice machine on every floor in order to qualify for a four star rating. Then there was the delegation from Singapore who insisted on caning guests that were caught chewing gum in their rooms or trying to steal the towels.

Not really.

They did create a basic initiative with regard to food and beverage service, front desk procedures, and housekeeping, but were not able to implement anything. That's the problem, implementation would require a well paid staff of investigators with no incentive to take a bribe. Good luck. Personally, I think the WTO should focus on more pressing problems like that whole world hunger thing.

Dear readers: Probity is defined as "complete and confirmed integrity; uprightness."

If you ever find yourself in a room full of public policy scholars and you are pressed to make an insightfull comment about any problem of government in any country in any region anywhere the world, just furrow your brow, shake your head slightly and say, "In my opinion, at its root, the problem appears to be a lack of probity." Got me all the way through graduate school ;-)

Read more about Singapore caning at: http://www.arches.uga.edu/~johnbuck/