The Rating Game

Morning lineup: Karine Dolven,
assistant director of housekeeping at the five-star Ritz-Carlton, Central Park, in New York City, reviews quality control with the staff.

It’s 8 a.m. on a wintry February morning, and the entire housekeeping staff, 30 people in all, of New York’s Ritz-Carlton, Central Park, are gathered in the hotel’s employee cafeteria for their daily mandatory lineup. Over the course of the next quarter-hour they will be briefed by management on the hotel’s occupancy level, the number of repeat guests in house, individual guest preferences and the aliases being used by any arriving VIPs. The meeting ends, as it always does, with a reminder that the employees are “ladies and gentlemen serving ladies and gentlemen.”
   “Housekeeping is without a doubt vital to the existence of a hotel,” says Karine Dolven, assistant director of housekeeping at the Ritz-Carlton. “Our staff is so proud every day of what they do and they do a phenomenal job.” The Mobil Travel Guide agrees. Last November, this influential arbiter of quality in the hospitality industry granted the property a coveted five-star rating to go with its AAA five-diamond ranking.
   Also last November, the Hotel Bel-Air in Los Angeles threw a lavish bash in its magnificent ballroom, complete with a live orchestra, fine wines and champagne toasts. Entry was by invitation only in this case, for the hotel’s staff of 250. The cause for celebration? Mobil had restored the Bel-Air’s five-star rating, an honor the property had held for 15 years until 1999, when it was demoted to four stars.
   “When we lost that star, every employee in this hotel was so disappointed, you could feel it, see it,” says Carlos Lopes, general manager and managing director. “From that moment, we had a mission to reclaim it.”
   To achieve five stars was the mission from day one at the Peninsula Chicago, which opened in 2001. General manager Maria Zec created a Strive for Five campaign, giving employees sponge stars to squeeze in their pockets as a daily reminder of the common goal. She also personally inspected up to 15 randomly selected guest rooms each day for one year. Last October, when the hotel received the news it had achieved its goal, Zec popped the champagne. She did it again weeks later, when the hotel learned it had won a five-diamond rating from the American Automobile Association.
   “It takes passion and commitment, and it costs a lot more to run a five-star or a five-diamond property,” says Zec. “But is puts you in a different category.”

New Spa Treatment: Ratings

Spa Palazzo at the Boca Raton (Fla.) Resort & Club

Hotels and restaurants have long been rated by various sources for years. But spas have been largely overlooked in the rating process. That changed earlier this year, however, when Mobile Travel Guide, based in Park Ridge, Ill., unveiled America’s Best Hotels & Resort Spas. The 48 property spas, all of them in North America (like the Spa Palazzo pictured at right) received ratings of three to five stars.

Why move into this arena? “As part of our inspection process for hotels and resorts, we always do amenities,” explains Shane O’Flagherty, vice president of Mobil Travel Guide. “But there often is a disconnect between the spa and the property, which can be managed by different firms. And with consumers and groups spending more than $2 billion annually at spas [according to the Lexington, Ky.-based International Spa Association], we felt it was worthwhile to look at them separately.”

In rating spas,Mobil Travel Guide’s inspectors consider the size of the facility, the type of treatments available, the number of staff, and the appearance of treatment rooms, fitness areas and locker rooms, along with the overall experience for the guest. - LISA GRIMALDI

HANKERING FOR A RANKING
For the hotel industry, being awarded Mobil’s five stars or AAA’s five diamonds is akin to winning a gold medal at the Olympics. To achieve and hold on to the ratings, properties have to plow millions annually into capital investment, spend heavily in training and service standards, and keep vigilant across every operating department, from concierge to room service, 365 days a year.
   New, ever-more luxurious entrants keep heating up competition in the luxury tier, and travelers are becoming increasingly sophisticated. These factors have rating services such as AAA and Mobil both well-recognized and respected in the hospitality industry constantly adding to their criteria as to what constitutes excellent service as well as physical comfort and style. For hotel executives who have reached the ratings summit, the payoff is worth the effort.
   “In a down market, meeting planners have a lot of options, because there is a lot of supply out there. It makes you vulnerable,” says John Cottrill, vice president of operations for the Washington, D.C.-based Ritz-Carlton Hotel Co. “If somebody else is a five-star and you’re a four-star, it makes a difference.” (Cottrill should know: Of the 30 hotels that achieved Mobil’s 2004 five-star rating out of some 10,500-plus properties that were reviewed, Ritz-Carlton and Four Seasons snagged the lion’s share.)
   “If your price point is the same as your competitors, and you have five stars, it really matters, because meeting planners know they will receive a certain level of service,” says Carlos Lopes of the Hotel Bel-Air. To regain its lost star and keep its significant corporate group business about 30 percent of its total, according to Lopes the Hotel Bel-Air invested
$20 million in an upgrade, embarked on an extensive employee service training program and completely redesigned all operational departments within the hotel. It was “an important business decision,” says Lopes.

BEHIND THE RATINGS
Both Mobil and AAA executives say their ratings reflect industry standards and consumer expectations, yet the two organizations vary widely in their criteria. Last October, the Fairmont Scottsdale Princess garnered five diamonds from AAA, yet Mobil gave it only three stars. In fact, there are 15 properties that Mobil rated three stars but AAA deemed worthy of five diamonds.
   Adding to the confusion are online travel portals such as Expedia and Hotwire, which issue ratings of their own. In addition to that, a slew of consumer magazines, such as Condé Nast Traveler, Gourmet and Travel & Leisure, annually poll their readers to bestow their own “world’s best” titles on hotels, cities, islands, spas and more.    
   Mobil, which began doling out stars in 1958, rates properties in the continental United States and selected Canadian cities only. The company maintains its ratings are an accurate, objective reflection of the lodging industry’s offerings and travelers’ expectations. Last year Mobil spent $2 million to inspect 10,500 properties in 3,000 cities, a job that fell to just four full-time service inspectors and 50 independent facility inspectors.
   Mobil’s inspectors answer more than 400 service-evaluation questions for each property they visit, based on stays of one to three nights. The data is compiled and tallied along with the facility inspectors’ checklists to achieve a final score. Because individual inspectors do not rate the hotels they visit, says Mobil, individual bias and subjectivity are virtually eliminated.

BULLETPROOF SCORING
“Over the last couple of years, we have tried to be more fair, more objective and more disciplined, because we want to be as bulletproof as possible,” says Shane O’Flagherty, vice president of the Park Ridge, Ill.-based Mobil Travel Guide. “The inspector may have had a wonderful stay, but when you run all the data they input, the final score may only add up to four stars. There are so many points coming into play, we think we are fair.”
   Still, O’Flagherty concedes, he can count on a volley of complaints from general managers unhappy with the ratings their hotels receive following the guide’s annual release.
   “We have general managers who call and say, ‘I’ve been doing this job for 12 years, how could you lower our rating?’” O’Flagherty says. “I tell them, ‘That’s just it. While you remained the same, the consumer’s expectations evolved.’’’
   Unlike Mobil, which decides what properties to review, hotels have to apply to the Heathrow, Fla.-based AAA, which represents 46 million members, to be rated. The association considers properties in all of North America, the Caribbean and Mexico, inviting representatives of each major hotel chain to attend an annual daylong session on rating guidelines, where they can submit their own ideas on criteria. The AAA also posts its guidelines on its website, www.ouraaa.com/news/news/diamond.
   When asked if hotels can be trusted to help create their own criteria for excellence, AAA says it makes perfect sense.
   “You can throw darts at a wall, you can ask 46 million people what they want, or you can ask the industry what is happening at various levels, what guests are experiencing,” says Michael Petrone, director of tourism information development for AAA. “We want to partner with the hotels to make properties better on behalf of our people. That’s our mission.”
   There are other differences between the two major rating organizations. For starters, AAA, which began inspecting properties in 1937 and launched its diamond rating system in 1977, reviews five times as many properties as Mobil 50,000 last year alone. That’s close to 800 inspections for each of the 65 inspectors, or “tourism editors.” In addition, AAA inspectors can meet with hotel reps following the inspection to review findings, well before ratings are assigned, to give the hotel time to pursue corrective measures that might prevent a loss of diamonds. Afterward, properties can appeal if they feel their ratings are too low.
   Mobil, by contrast, does not provide an appeals process to hotels. Neither does it offer hotels guidelines on its star-rating system or share its evaluations in advance with any hotel. “Our job is not to provide advice,” says O’Flagherty.
   The AAA, being an association, also tracks complaints it receives about properties from members. If any one property receives a number of bad marks and does not resolve the issues after receiving a warning, the AAA will drop it from the rating system; the hotel cannot reapply to be rated for at least two years.
   For its part, Hotwire says its sales representatives visit 7,000 hotels per year, and their property reviews are then compared to “recognized industry sources and rating systems,” including Smith Travel Research, PricewaterhouseCoopers and Mobil. Smith Travel Research and PricewaterhouseCoopers are highly regarded for their lodging industry analyses, which group hotels by tiers based on facilities, service provided and room rate, but only Mobil rates the quality of service delivered to the guest.

PLANNERS COUNTING STARS
Hotels aren’t the only ones counting their stars or diamonds. Professionals such as Irene Scott, corporate meeting planner for the Federal Home Loan Bank of Atlanta, say they use the ratings to gauge a hotel’s potential.
   In Scott’s case, AAA’s ratings are the barometer of choice, though she is forgiving about a loss in ranking. “I do a lot of repeat business, and if one hotel was to slip from a five-diamond to a four-diamond, I would still use them,” she notes, adding, however, that if a new hotel were to rate five diamonds in a market where she did business with a four-diamond property, “I would definitely consider them.”
   “Every year I look at the various industry magazines to see what the ratings are,” says Jackie Yung, executive event producer for Santa Clara, Calif.-based Intel Corp. “Certain brands and hotels are consistently good, and that is what I am looking for when my key executives are involved.” Still, adds Yung, no matter the rating or what relationship she has with a property, she prefers to do her own site inspection. “Hotels are always changing management, and because of the level of service my meetings warrant, I just can’t chance it to a rating,” she says.
   Other planners are likewise cautious about blindly trusting a ranking. “I don’t mean to be cynical, but if a property loses a star or a diamond, you have to ask why and go take another look for yourself,” says Gail Sapp, a senior meeting planner with Bethpage, N.Y.-based Cablevision Systems Corp. “Maybe they were having a renovation. Maybe they were under new management. You have to do some of your own research.”

THE BAR KEEPS RISING
There is no question the criteria for excellence has been raised. Twenty years ago, a bathrobe and minibar might have been considered the height of luxury. Today, hotels must not only adhere to physical criteria such as the comfort of a bathroom layout, they also need to have impeccably trained staff. The rigorous requirements make the pursuit of this level of excellence daunting for many properties and impractical for others.
   A case in point is the Greenbrier, a venerable grande dame with 38 straight years of five-star status. Mobil downgraded this White Sulphur Springs, Va., property in 2001 to four stars, where it has since remained. Some insiders are crying foul, especially considering the hotel continues to spend up to $16 million a year on capital improvements, but Mobil remains firm in its view.
   The Greenbrier and other properties say that, as much as they value Mobil’s and AAA’s ratings, there is a limit to what they can realistically do with the property’s infrastructure to keep it in the running with evolving standards.
   “The Greenbrier opened in 1913. When the requirements call for physical changes, it can be a challenge both structurally and financially to adapt to them,” says Ted J. Kleisner, the hotel’s president and managing director. By contrast, however, AAA has awarded the hotel a five-diamond rating for the last 28 years.
   Williamsburg, Va.-based hotel consultant Harry Nobles, a former AAA inspector who helped create the company’s rating guidelines before retiring in 1990, says there is no question it is harder for older properties to compete with new ones, but it can be done. “The difference between a four- and a five-diamond hotel always comes down to service,” says Nobels.
   Some properties are quick to point out that other accolades can help ameliorate the loss of a star or diamond. For example, the Phoenician, which lost its Mobil five-star status in 2002, continues to hold a five-diamond rating from AAA and treasures its high ranking in Condé Nast Traveler.
   “The Mobil and AAA ratings are very important to us, but there are others we have to take into consideration,” says Debora Bridges, a spokesperson for the Phoenician. “A Mobil inspector may come once, maybe twice a year and give a rating. I think we would have been more concerned if we had slipped in a reader poll, like Condé Nast’s.”
   For Maria Zec of the Peninsula Chicago, however, a stamp of excellence from Mobil or AAA is the ultimate industry acknowledgement of her hotel’s hard work. “It is prestigious to be part of that club,” she says. “Employees take pride in it. And once you have won that star, you never want to lose it.”