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Is a hotel 'star wars' looming?
Thursday, April 02, 2009 Hotel consortium Supranational has advised hoteliers to downgrade their star ratings to attract more custom. The organisation says hotels should start ‘star wars’ to entice business travellers and help them get round travel policy. Since the economy fell into recession a number of corporates have been tightening policies and mandating that travellers downgrade the class of hotel in which they stay. In an email to its 1,200 members, Supranational said deflating classification could help corporate guests make it look like they had chosen a more average hotel. Supranational Hotels managing director, Niels Pedersen, said: “Corporate travellers now want to stay in the Hotel Prudence, not Hotel Avarice. “More than 70% of our reservations are now for three-star or equivalent standard hotels, a proportion up from 50% in 12 months – the key is to be more thoughtful in this middle-market area.” But Julie Janzen, suppliers relations manager at Worldwide Independent Travel Network, said: “It would be better to remove star rating rather than decrease it. “If you decrease it then you are, in fact, misrepresenting the product. “If you look at hotel groups like the new Doyle Collection, you will see they do not have an official rating for the exactly that reason.”
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