otel BusinessH ® otel BusinessH As Seen In July 15, 2013

Reprinted with permission of Hotel Business®, copyright ICD Publications 2013

ATLANTA—With all hoteliers look-ing for ways to attract guests and im-prove their ROI, Forbes Travel Guide believes it has an attractive new option for hotels in the luxury segment: its Global Star Rating Program (GSRP). In addition, the company, which already rates hotels in the U.S., Canada, China and Singapore, is entering the Eu-ropean market.

Formerly Mobil Travel Guide, the company has been rating hotels since 1958 and has three rating thresholds: Five Star, Four Star and Rec-ommended. According to the company, the GSRP will allow hotels and other hospitality providers to better understand the company’s anonymous in-spection standards and of� -cial results, which in turn can drive measurable ROI.

GSRP partners are eligible for several bene� ts, notably a summary results report from the anonymous inspection that details a property’s score across all 17 categories of evaluation, as well as against all nine high-impact classi� -cations, such as Courtesy & Manners and Sense of Person-alized Service. Michael Cascone, presi-dent and COO, Forbes Travel Guide, noted that it only makes sense to be transparent with star-rated properties and let them know why they received the rating they did. “To not share that data with them is absolutely anachro-nistic and not right for the times,” he said. “Let’s hold ourselves as much ac-countable as we’re holding the indus-try. Share all the data we have—it’s no secret. Share it with the hoteliers and the property providers so they know clearly what we’re seeing in our inspec-tion. We welcome that dialogue.”

In addition, partners can have access to a complete set of the proprietary Forbes Travel Guide service and facil-ity standards, updated annually as they are re� ned to remain current with in-

dustry and guest expectations; an of-� cial license to promote its star rating; and a dedicated property feature and direct booking on forbestravelguide.com.

According to Cascone, partnering in the GSRP is not necessary to be eli-gible for inspection or rating, nor will it affect the rating system. “They can’t

buy their ratings,” Cascone explained. “If you’re not paying us and you’re best in market, we’re going to rate and in-spect you anyway. This isn’t paying for the rating.” He further noted that for many properties, it might be a matter of a tweak or two to achieve the next rating tier. “Now they know, as op-posed to having no idea as to where they fall in the Four-Star, Five-Star or Recommended category,” he said.

Cascone noted this separation be-tween the GSRP and the anonymous inspections is important because the service is really on behalf of the con-sumer. When asked if resources like OTA user reviews have affected how consumers view the rating system, Cas-cone noted it had not. “The bottom line is � ve stars is still one of the pri-

mary � lters by which consumers will either � lter properties by price or by quality,” he remarked. “You go to any booking engine or user review site, and you see that everything has a star rating associated with it.”

Of course, user reviews remain vital to guests. “We value that and think it

absolutely has a place in the market,” Cascone said. “But what really is miss-ing is this in-depth, expert, compre-hensive assessment alongside that. If you look at what we focus on, which is luxury and upscale, those consum-ers are seeking a comprehensive point of view alongside their social media friends and user reviews.” He noted that rating systems also vary widely, us-ing Shanghai as an example. Accord-ing to Cascone, the Shanghai tourism board says there are more than 60 � ve-star hotels in the market; TripAdvisor names over 40; and Forbes launched with two. “At the end of the day, the consumer is seeking a consistent meth-odology applied around star-rating standards globally. Today, the con-sumer is being left disappointed a lot

of times because it’s so inconsistent around the globe.”

On average, participation in the GSRP is $6,500 a year. Cascone noted that ranges based on a number of fac-tors—such as which bene� ts the part-ner utilizes and the total room key of the property—and could be as low as

$3,000 or as high as $9,000. More than 350 clients have

signed up for the GSRP over the last eight months, which Cascone calls “phenomenal.” Interest in North America has been strongest, “where our brand, star rating and rec-ognition of what we do and how we evaluate is strongest,” said Cascone, but the com-pany has also partnered with hotels worldwide. He added that, to date, the company has primarily been selling on the operating level—to GMs, directors of learning develop-ment and directors of mar-keting—but that it could be valuable information to own-ers and investors as well. “You can have more insight into how they’re actually operat-ing and executing,” he said. “How are properties perform-ing? Who’s trending in the high-end four that I can make a � ve if we work at it? Who’s

trending down?”Recently, the company entered the

European market for the � rst time with its launch in London, and plans to announce Paris in Q3 2014. “Those cities would have been on the top of the list in Europe anyway, one before the other, but we chose London for a lot of reasons related to how it � ts in the international traveler,” Cascone said, adding that the fact that it’s an English-speaking country was a plus. Over the next 36 months, the company has 10 key lighthouse cities in which it plans to do formal launches. “The idea is that with the expansion of our star-rated network over the next 36 months, we’ll have the global market covered in terms of our initiatives and properties in our segment,” Cascone said.

Forbes Travel Guide unveils Global Star Rating Program

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BY NICOLE CARLINO

The Dorchester Promenade in London is part of the Forbes star-rating program.