Sovietsky hotel Moscow

Russian hotels are not seeking stars

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Russian hotels are not seeking stars

Rostourism – the Federal Agency for Tourism in Russia - carried out the next stage of a national campaign for the official certification of Russian hotels. Over 20 hotels from different regions and cities of Russia put in a claim for receiving <<stars>> - an indicator, which reflects the level of hotel comfort and service. As a result, only one hotel among all the applicants received the right to be called a five star one – it is «Mirage» from Kazan. Two other hotels: from Moscow and the capital of Bashkortostan - Ufa were certified with four stars. All the other hotels received an average rate - <<3 stars>>.

Certification of hotels in Russia is carried out on the basis of applications, and hotels pay for its implementation from their pockets. Perhaps, therefore, the number of hoteliers in Russia seeking a formal confirmation of the quality of their hotel services is quite few in number. In four years, during which Rostourism evaluates hotels, less than 5% of the Russian hotel voluntarily agreed to take a certification. To date, the number of hotels in Russia, which has officially received «stars», does not exceed 350. At the same time, there are over 200 hotels in Moscow. A paradoxical situation can be observed: Moscow, which provides the lion's share of inbound tourism in Russia, has the less the number of «star hotels» than Sochi - a famous resort, which, however, can not compete with the Russian capital by the number of tourists.

Against this background, there is a sharp discrepancy in Russia between the level of hotels, the quality of services and prices of rooms that hotels set discretionary. The shortage of hotels in small cities has led to the paradoxical situation when a guest for a room in a 2 * hotel has to pay as for a four-star «suite».

Thereby, for most of the Russian hotel, especially in the provinces, certification is a very expensive way to attract customers. Indeed, apart from a single certification, according to the rules of Rostourism, hotel has to confirm the quality of its services every five years. And re-checking - is also not free. According to Rostourism, the only solution in such a situation is a free registration. However, under conditions of crisis, such an initiative will face a certain shortage of funding. Improvement of the quality of Russian hotels remains a pressing issue.

Photo: commons.wikimedia.org

Date: 02/03/2009