GLOBAL REPORT—Spanish hoteliers are becoming increasingly frustrated with the country’s hodgepodge of star classification systems, which can differ tremendously among Spain’s 17 autonomous regions and prevents one of the world’s leading tourism destinations from joining a European rating regime.
“It’s absurd,” said Ramón Estalella, the secretary general of the Spanish Confederation of Hotels and Tourism Accommodations, or CEHAT, which represents 14,000 properties and 1.5 million beds.
“There is no real national star rating system so guests have no reliable way to gauge a hotel’s quality, and it’s confusing for owners and operators,” he said. “And this in a country which consistently ranks third globally in visitor arrivals.”
The Spanish government created a basic national classification system in the 1950s that still exists in some form. The system stipulates general requirements, for example, that a 5-star hotel must have a bar and elevator, a certain minimum size for the rooms that should each feature a bathroom with tub and shower, telephone, heating, air conditioning and safe.
But with the return of democracy and decentralization in the 1980s, the country’s 17 regions were granted wide autonomy in establishing distinct responsibilities covering a range of sectors, including tourism.
“So each region has its very own additional requirements for rating hotels by things like room size, whether a bathroom should have both a toilet and a bidet or the front desk should have an English-speaking concierge in order to meet the criteria for a certain number of stars,” Estalella said.
And in practice the system is often less than logical.
“In the Canary Islands, for example, there is a lovely boutique hotel in a 16th century structure with its own beach, a huge garden and that charges €200 ($218) per person, per night,” Estalella said. “TripAdvisor ranks it as a 5-star, but under the Canary Islands regional classification system it is defined as a 1-star hotel because it lacks an elevator and has no covered garage.”
One of the Spanish capital’s glitziest 5-star properties, the Eurostars Madrid Tower, takes up the first 31 floors of a 58-story skyscraper, with a multinational consulting company occupying the remaining floors.
However, the secretary general said, if the same hotel were in the southern region of Andalusia, it would be classified as a 1-star under local rules because it shares a building with another business.
“We’ve been working for the past six years in our attempt to standardize the rating system and the central government says it is a great idea. But its hands are tied because the regional governments want to hold on to their autonomous powers,” Estalella said.
Classification systems aside, Spanish hoteliers also have to deal with each region’s regulations covering other aspects of operations.
“Why, for instance, do we have 17 different sets of rules regarding swimming pools, food safety or many other issues?” Estalella said.
Estalella concedes that comments on websites such as TripAdvisor or Booking.com can give potential guests some idea of a hotel’s attributes, but argues the appraisals can be less than accurate.
“Frequent travelers can give a fair opinion, but people who travel less often may not be able to judge a hotel very well. Then there are those people who always complain about everything no matter how good the hotel experience or they just lie,” he said.
“We need a national standard that is transparent and our current star-rating system prevents Spain from joining the 15-member Hotelstars Union, which we would like to do,” he added.
The HSU system
Established in 2009, the HSU groups Austria; Belgium; the Czech Republic; Denmark; Estonia; Germany; Greece; Hungary; Latvia; Lithuania; Luxembourg; Malta; the Netherlands; Sweden; and Switzerland in a harmonized classification regime based on points.
“It is a mixed system of mandatory and optional criteria which mainly cover the hardware of a hotel and are revised every six years,” said Matthias Koch, the CEO of the Austrian Professional Hotel Association, which holds the rotating secretariat of the HSU.
According to Koch, the ratings provide quality orientation for the guest and acts as a quality control instrument for hoteliers.
“It’s a harmonized classification scheme with one logo and harmonized signs (and) collaborates with (online travel agencies), like Expedia, to communicate the official stars on their websites,” he added.
Koch said that if Spain were to ditch its regional rules and come up with a national star classification it would not be a unique case as Belgium had several different rating systems before standardizing them and joining the HSU.
The most recent country to sign on is Denmark where membership was coordinated by the Danish Hotel, Restaurant and Tourism Industry Association, or HORESTA, which launched the system at the beginning of this year.
“We joined the Hotelstars Union in order to get a stronger and more international classification for Denmark,” said Christoffer Susé, the association’s relations manager and head of hotel classification.
There are 320 Danish hotels classified using HSU criteria on a voluntary basis. However, all members of the Danish hotel organization are obliged to be rated if they have more than 40 beds.
According to the association, the classification is based on objective criteria—i.e. specific, physical facilities and services—and not subjective factors such as the hotel’s ambience, location, views from the rooms or the quality of food in the restaurant.
Hoteliers had plenty of time to prepare for adopting the new system and the criteria of the previous rating system was similar to that of the HSU allowing for a smooth transition.
Susé said one benefit of the new scheme is that it permits a “superior” rating in each star category to further clarify the differentiation within the category.
“The HSU system is recognized, widespread and has good professional power,” he said. “It is a great advantage.”