HOTEL CLASSIFICATION

Recent developments

International hotel classification at ISO…
In 1998, IH&RA strongly opposed attempts by ISO - International Organisation for Standardisation - to introduce an international hotel classification scheme based on the ISO 9000 series of Quality Management standards. Further to intensive and prolonged lobbying efforts, these attempts were finally abandoned in favour of work initiated by the European Standards Body – CEN - on the harmonisation of description criteria for accommodation facilities, which IH&RA fully supported. This work was ultimately embodied in a combined CEN/ISO standard EN ISO 18513 on Tourism Services – Hotels and other types of tourism accommodation – Terminology, published in January 2001.

… and at WTO-Tourism
The issue of setting up an international hotel classification scheme has appeared on the agenda of the World Tourism Organisation (WTO) regularly since 1986, and most recently in 2000. After formally protesting against this initiative, IH&RA was approached by WTO to undertake joint work on the topic of hotel classification. IH&RA then specifically agreed to undertake:
- a status report on existing hotel classification systems in member countries;
- a comparative analysis of these systems.