Star treatment

What do hotel ratings really mean? And who decides them?

Let’s start with John Murray’s “Handbooks for Travellers” which were, in 1836, the first publications to use a star rating for hotels. Murray used one star for recommended, and none for the others – a much clearer system than those of the more than 20 organisations that today attempt to classify properties worldwide. In North America there is the AAA Diamond rating, in the United Kingdom travellers have the Automobile Association or the national tourist boards. Most of continental Europe adopts the scheme by HOTREC (the Association of Hotels, Restaurants and Cafés), though France, with Gallic desire for differentiation, favours the Hôtels de Tourisme award. At the start of the 20th century, the Michelin Guide introduced star ratings to restaurants. By 1931 it increased the number awarded to a maximum of…

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Business Traveller Asia-Pacific Edition (Digital) - 1 Issue, November 2018

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