Together to the stars

The historically first ever international classification in Europe

"Together to the stars!" This is not a statement made by astronauts, but a reality that starts off a new stage of co-operation between associations representing the hotel and gastronomy industry around Europe. At the same time, it is a new form of communication with the customer, which, in a clear and transparent way, makes the customer's orientation easier when selecting a hotel or a boarding house in altogether four European countries. For the operators of hotels and restaurants in the Czech Republic it then represents a unique opportunity to join the more than 17,000 classified establishments in Germany and Austria, as well as a so far unspecified number of hotels in Hungary. There is no need to point out the importance of such a step in light of accessing the markets of these two important tourist destinations. Czech Republic, Germany, Hungary and Austria have agreed on a common "Central European" classification, effective from the year 2010 onwards.

The Czech Association of Hotels and Restaurants, which since the year 1993 has been a member of the European confederation of associations representing hotels and restaurants - HOTREC, has always fully realised the significance of active participation and membership within this organisation. The substantial financial resources that the AHR invests into this co-operation on an annual basis pay dividends to our members in the form of information, co-operation and possibilities to co-decide on the future development of our industry on a European scale.

Thanks to this co-operation, and also thanks to the activities that we have been pursuing in the course of the recent years while developing the system of classification of accommodation facilities in the Czech Republic, we were asked whether we wanted to join an intended common classification project, which would consolidate this system in terms of the four above mentioned European countries. Following a series of multilateral negotiations, which culminated in a meeting of the representatives of the German associations IHA and DEHOGA and the Austrian WKO with the members of the Council of the AHR CR and of the Classificatory Committee that was held on 29th July 2009, it has been unanimously established that this epochal challenge must be taken advantage of.

For the basis of the common classification, a modified version of the German classification has been chosen, which has been functioning for several years already and at present is representing the high-quality services of more than 8,000 accommodation facilities in Germany alone. Almost a half of all the accommodation capacities in Austria are certified according to this classification and also Hungary is going to adopt this system starting from the year 2010. Having compared the system with our national classification, a decision has been made to apply it in full extent. We are convinced that a system that has been functioning smoothly in these countries will be similarly usable also in our country and that those certified accommodation facilities, which complied with our original classification, are not going to come across any principle problems in being classified according to the new system. This view has in fact been also confirmed by a number of our colleagues who test-classified their hotels according to this new system.

How does the system work then and what differences are there? In principle, as compared to the original classification, the main difference is the great flexibility of the system. Each facility first self-classifies itself using checklists. The checklists contain mandatory and optional items for each of the classes, much in the same way as we were used to. The flexibility subsists in that there is quite a large number of optional items and that each hotel can so decide, which elements are deemed most important for its customers. Those, who will have fulfilled more than just the obligatory criteria and the minimum number of optional criteria, will then be entitled to obtain a "Superior" marking in each class. This means we are shifting from a so called "KO" classification type, which strictly limited the hoteliers and prevented some smaller accommodation facilities from entering the system, to an "OK" type system, which, on clear terms, enables its exploitation by a wide range of accommodation facilities, while preserving the transparency of services and protecting the customer at the same time.

The system provides an unambiguous response to the activities of some regions, which, with reference to their "specificity", have been trying to develop their own local classification systems, however "invisible" from the perspective of the customers and the operators they were. At the same time, the system opens up some unprecedented possibilities for publicity and visualisation of all the certified establishments, as well as for the marketing co-operation of the participating countries, which are crucial for our incoming tourism. So, within a very short timeframe, the synergistic efforts of mutual support are going to bear the desired fruit, with especially the citizens of these countries finally preferring to search their destination hotels from within a pool of those that have been registered under the new classification system. As various surveys carried out in Germany and Austria have confirmed, the "hotel stars" are the second most important factor in the customer's decision-making process.

ubsequently to these activities, the AHR CR, being the creator and warrantor of the Czech technical standard CNI 761110, is going to fully harmonise this standard with the new system, whereby its significance will be further reassured.

Switzerland is presently thinking of adopting the same system as well, the classification in the Netherlands has been based on the German classification model already since earlier days, the Baltic countries have already been working towards developing a "Nordic-Baltic Classification" system. With regard to the harmonisation of classification in Europe, which was initially sparked by the HOTREC members developing 15 harmonisation criteria for the individual classifications of EU member countries, the process of unification of the system is inevitable in the future. If we are at the birth of the common classification from its day one, then we will be in a position of being able to influence it for the benefit of the customers and operators of the accommodation facilities, as well as to contribute to the improvement of the quality of services in our country.

Václav Stárek