Don't let hotels assign stars indiscriminately

(Baonghean) - In recent years, in Nghe An, there have been many hotels that have self-proclaimed themselves "star" hotels or have not maintained the quality of the "star" they were granted.

Hotel "star" chaos

At the end of June 2017, the inspection team of the General Department of Tourism issued a document revoking the 3-star rating of 3 hotels in the province, including: Green Nghe An Hotel, Media Hotel (Vinh city) and Kim Ngan II Hotel (Cua Lo town).

The reason these 3 hotels had their star ratings revoked is because they failed to maintain the quality of service as well as the quality of management staff and service staff according to the recognized star rating.

This information is like the last straw because according to many people, the chaotic situation of hotel “star” quality in Nghe An has been going on for many years now, affecting the tourism brand of the province. Some people believe that if management is strict, the number of hotels whose “stars” will certainly not stop at that number.

Media Hotel (Vinh City) - 1 of 3 hotels that have just had their 3-star rating revoked by the General Department of Tourism. Photo: Phuoc Anh

Mr. Tran Ngoc Khoan - Vice President of Nghe An Tourism Association said that the process of re-evaluating and classifying tourist accommodation establishments is every 3 years. According to him, this time is appropriate, because in those 3 years, issues regarding the quality of facilities, human resources, service style, sustainability of service quality, etc. will be clearly revealed.

“It is difficult to be recognized as a star, but it is even more difficult to maintain it. If the hotel owner does not invest in maintaining the facilities, does not regularly train the staff… then the quality will decline very quickly. Many times, the hotel signs are marked with stars year after year, but the inside is very degraded!” - Mr. Tran Ngoc Khoan shared.

The Vice President of Nghe An Tourism Association also frankly expressed his opinion that hotels that cannot maintain their "performance" but still advertise with stars is a form of "false advertising", deceiving customers.

Not only are self-proclaimed star hotels in violation, but some tourism promotion websites and travel agencies that bring customers there are also accomplices. For profit, travel agencies sign contracts with customers to stay at 3- or 4-star hotels, but sometimes they bring them to establishments with service quality only equal to that of motels.

Tighten inspection and post-inspection

According to research, the star rating for hotels is currently being applied according to TCVN 4391:2015 of the Ministry of Science and Technology, which stipulates 5 criteria that accommodation establishments must achieve to be recognized as 1 to 5 star hotels, including: location, architecture; equipment, service facilities; service and service level; service staff and hygiene.

According to Mr. Tran Ngoc Khoan - Vice President of Nghe An Tourism Association, the most difficult thing for most hotels when doing star rating procedures is the criteria for service staff. He said that this is a "difficult problem" not only for Nghe An tourism but also on a national scale.

“According to the regulations of each star level, the human resources must meet 90% - 100% of professional and technical training, from 1-star hotels and above, direct service staff must know a common foreign language within the scope of transactions. In fact, to ensure this criterion is extremely difficult, especially with the characteristics of seasonal tourism human resources in Nghe An” - Mr. Khoan shared.

In addition, many hotel owners also "cried out" because the star rating standards have too many detailed requirements, many of which are not very useful in practice.

Human resource quality is one of the difficult criteria in evaluating and ranking accommodation establishments. Illustrative photo

The revised Law on Tourism, which was recently passed by the National Assembly in June, allows accommodation establishments to voluntarily register for star ratings. This is considered a flexible regulation, creating favorable conditions for businesses, in line with the general trend of the world.

Many tourism experts say that there is no need to worry too much about the "loose" regulations causing lax management, because reality will prove that businesses are not foolish enough not to register for star ratings because this is the basis for promoting and proving service quality to customers.

Of course, voluntarily registering for star ratings does not mean that hotels have the right to self-award stars. Self-awarding stars for advertising purposes without a written recognition from a state management agency is a violation of the law. Thus, when the new regulations come into effect, the State only needs to focus on inspection, testing, and post-testing, instead of taking on many procedures like before.

To ensure a healthy tourism accommodation market, Mr. Nguyen Manh Cuong - Director of the Department of Tourism affirmed that in the coming time, he will drastically tighten post-inspection, urge inspection and regular check.

The head of Nghe An Tourism also said that for the hotel business, brand and reputation are vital factors, especially when reviews and comments on service quality are increasingly shared at a rapid pace on social networks.

In order to facilitate tourists in choosing accommodation services, it is advisable that the official information "channels" of Nghe An Tourism such as magazines, websites, etc. also need to post and publicly update the list of star-rated hotels to avoid confusion.

Currently, the province has 822 accommodation establishments with 19,703 rooms, but there is only 1 5-star hotel, 6 4-star hotels, 14 3-star hotels and more than 80 1-2 star hotels, the remaining 720 establishments are all small-scale, with limited facilities and services.

Phuoc Anh