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Written by Administrator
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“I stayed in a five start hotel,” boasts your neighbour. “I heard you and your wife went to the Algarve last year? Oh, 3 stars? Oh, you poor things! Well, I’m sure it was very... quaint.”
It might not quite work like that in real life, but we all know someone to whom the amount of stars a hotel has needs to be higher than what the next person can afford. In fact, for these people the rating system has gone beyond the rather typical ‘one to five’ rating and has now invented its own six and seven star hotels, the latter of which includes only two hotels in the world. Everywhere across the world places try to get more stars up on their sign so that they can boast their amazing services, so the star rating really must mean something, right?
Well actually, no. It may come as a shock to many but the actual star system used by hotels across Europe is somewhat arbitrary. The first problem is that there is no definition across the continent into what makes a hotel one star or five. Nobody has written up a continental guide to exactly how hotels are rated. If the Italian government want to make it so any hotel with a toilet that can flush is five stars, they can. If the Spanish government wants to give every hotel with a reception a rating of zero, that’s possible as well.
That’s not to say stars don’t mean anything. They are generally a reasonably good run down of all of the services a hotel has. That means that anything like separate showers or an internet connection will be marked, but how well a hotel combines its wallpaper with its curtains is not. Armed with this knowledge you could quite actually find a one star hotel that’s actually much more charming an enjoyable than a five star that may have all of the amenities but lacks any sort of personality. You can tell that to your neighbour the next time he tries to boast.
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Last Updated on Monday, 15 February 2010 10:11 |
