AAA Tourism Confusion
The recent announcement of a change of management of the Star Ratings scheme under AAA Tourism has caused a great deal of angst and confusion within the accommodation sector but at the Accommodation Association of Australia there’s also been a little sigh of relief if only for the removal of the other AAA brand.
Since the rebranding of the Association, formerly known as HMAA, over 2 years ago, there has been some confusion over the acronym AAA which has been assigned to both organisations and intermixed on occasions.
“The rebranding of HMAA and launch of the Accommodation Association of Australia was done with the understanding that AAA Tourism were rebranding themselves back in 2011 to Club Tourism Publishing (CTP)”. Whilst CTP did come into effect, the effect was that it left the industry with two organisations referred to as AAA.” explains Accommodation Association of Australia, CEO, Richard Munro.
“It’s been quite interesting at times, we have had to deal with a range of issues from industry in relation to the STAR Rating system which we have had to refer them onto the correct entity and we also regularly received payments for AAA Tourism that we have had to refund of course”
The decision to dissolve the Club Tourism Publishing joint venture partnership and wind-up AAA Tourism publishing operations in Australia has no impact on Star Ratings with the assessors continuing to review properties according to the new scheme criteria launched in 2011 and remaining in place under AMS management.
The Accommodation Association is pleased to see the only widely used and objective ratings system in the country being maintained particularly following the November edition of CHOICE magazine which warned Australian travellers: “The boom in hotel review sites has given rise to the practice of ‘astroturfing’ or the writing of fake reviews by companies to promote their own accommodation.” The Accommodation Association of Australia (AAA) contributed to the Choice article highlighting the level of unreliability of consumer reviews experienced by the industry with our 2012 survey indicating that half the 381 respondents who took part regarding TripAdvisor reviews as inaccurate.
AAA is looking forward to working with their partners at AMS to ensure the STAR Rating system is still an effective, fair and accepted tool for the industry and most importantly travellers throughout Australia.
Source: Accommodation Association of Australia, 2 December 2013
