Starstruck hotels on notice over self-rating

The owners of Australia's hotel and accommodation star-rating system are calling for an overhaul as operators persist in self-rating or billing their hotels as six star when there is no such thing.

NRMA chief executive Tony Stuart said the nation's hotel star-rating system, which is controlled by several automobile clubs including the NRMA, needed reviewing because some properties were self-rating with mixed results. Mr Stuart said the TQual accommodation rating system instituted by federal Labor under former tourism minister Martin Ferguson should also be reviewed by the incoming Coalition government.

"James Packer can assume that (the hotel) he is developing at Barangaroo is equivalent to a six-star. Currently there is not a six-star rating for a hotel in Australia," said Mr Stuart who is attending the World Travel & Tourism Council Asian Summit in Seoul this week.

"There are no six-star ratings in many parts of the world," Mr Stuart told The Australian. A five-star rating is presently seen as the ultimate acknowledgement of a property's quality.

Tourists wanted to know what standard of property they had booked, he said.

Mr Stuart, who has about $300 million worth of tourism assets on the NRMA balance sheet, said consumers wanted a better system given some of the questionable accommodation ratings on Trip Advisor. "Trip Advisor has been very contentious," he claimed.

"There is (also) an issue in self-rating. We want to sit down with the Coalition and discuss how do we make star ratings relevant. That may mean rating every single property in Australia."

At present, the automobile groups send inspectors to rate hotels only if the property has requested it. "We are conscious there is a growing abuse of self-rating," he said.

Source: The Australian, 12 September 2013