Comment: Dr. Russell Arthur Smith on hospitality ratings and rankings
28 June 2010
Thinking the Future: the Challenge of Social Media and Rating Asian Hospitality Services
A new era in rating and ranking of hospitality services has dawned in Asia. Leading professional ranking organizations are rolling out their coverage of Asian hospitality services and setting authoritative comparative standards.
Forbes has brought over its Mobil Travel Guide and rebranded it as Forbes Travel Guide, and is now expanding into Asia and ranking leading hotels and spas in Beijing, Hong Kong and Macau, while Michelin Guide assigns its iconic star ratings to leading restaurants in Tokyo, Kyoto and Osaka and has recently expanded its rankings to include Yokohama, Kamakura and Kobe.
It is clear that the epoch of formal and independent rating and ranking has arrived in Asia. Paralleling this initiative is the advent of the new online social media, such as TripAdvisor and Facebook, with their informal and, some say, often emotionally charged reviews. These formal and social rankings are completely changing the way our customers are viewing hospitality services in Asia.
Formal, and independent, ranking organizations have had a well-respected acceptance in Europe and North America. Forbes Travel Guide and Michelin Guide have systematic rating criteria and procedures on which they base their rankings. Auditors regularly visit hospitality establishments to undertake assessments, and because of their defined objectives and formal processes, customers have confidence in the rankings, unlike self-rankings provide by organizations themselves.
For formally ranked establishments, guests know what to expect from establishments of similar rank but often heavily discount rankings provide by the organization themselves, so we can expect to see the formal rankings of hotels and restaurants become more pervasive in Asia and more accepted by our customers.
This will especially help negotiations between establishments and their corporate customers. Clarity will also be provided across the greatly varying national systems of rankings with their often confusing and therefore unhelpful rating rationales. For our guests, the bottom line is service guarantee. For management, there will be an incentive to maintain or improve their ranking.
