Hotels have since 1958 relies on a star rating system. This gives travelers an idea of what kind of service or facilities they may expect to find when booking in.
The only consistent expectation for a star classified hotel is cleanliness, from a one star to a five star they must have an eighty percent or high standard services. If a cockroach takes your luggage as you book in, then you can be fairly certain the star out the front is painted cardboard held on with sticky tape.
The star rating system is not the only rating system for hotels and different countries have their own ratings and standards, all a bit confusing for an overseas traveler. The AAA and their affiliates use a diamond rating system and then there are a range of different terms that can relate to hotel status, The Deluxe/Luxury, Superior/First-class, Tourist class/ Standard and Budget/Economy.
Some hotels may have three to four star service and facilities and can only get a two star rating because they have no elevator. The system is so complicated and the rating process so extensive that it is a miracle that any hotel gets a star. There are three main areas of examination Facilities and Service, Cleanliness and Quality and Condition. Cleanliness is self explanatory, the facilities and service refers to how you are treated by staff, is there room service, pool maintenance Townsville and facilities refers to such things as pools, saunas, elevators and facilities for people with a disability.
Quality encompasses the design elements of the hotels, sustainability, functionality and even the construction technique used. Condition is the over all state of the hotel, the absence of discernable defects, holes, stress, tear and wear at the time of the assessment. No gluing that lamp back together, unless you can make it look like a peace of art.
All together hotels are reviewed independently by the AAA against 200 hundred criteria. That would be one stressful day; house inspections have nothing on this. This of course ensures that you as a guest can at least depend upon a certain level of decent standard when staying at a hotel with a star rating and that when these requirements are not met that the establishment can suffer through loss of their rating therefore making it to their benefit to keep their standards high.
Keep an eye out for those stars and remember how much these Hotels went through to get their ratings, even those hotels that haven’t managed to get a star might be quite acceptable but were not on the day up to star standard, simply because of threadbare curtains or no pool because the beach is right across the road and the pet rat out the back is the size of a small poodle. Give them a chance they might surprise you and they will be a lot cheaper than those starry eyed lot.