Forbes Travel Guide launches in London bringing its star-rating system to the end hotels and spas around the Capital.
Only six London hotels were awarded with a coveted five-star rating from Forbes Travel Guide. These are: 45 Park Lane; Claridge’s; The Dorchester; The Lanesborough London; Four Seasons Hotel at Park Lane and The Savoy. Plus two London hotel spas were awarded a five-star rating: The Spa at Four Seasons and The Spa at Mandarin Oriental, London.
Which means several London’s luxury hotels are notable by their failure to achieve a five-star rating.
“Forbes announcement is probably going to ruffle a number of feathers amongst London hoteliers. Forbes is respected for its unique proposition of service based ratings that many purchasers will welcome, however it could be interesting to look if Forbes Rating System is embraced by the hospitality industry.
We have first hand experience with a lot of these brands and know they invest significantly of their internal communications and colleague development programmes for service excellence. We wait to work out what impact this may have on staff development and the extent of service we will expect from hotels.” Gregg Hone, Director electricjelly and Evolve Founder
We caught up with Jayne E. Griswold, Executive Vp, Forbes Travel Guide, and asked the next questions:
What makes the six London 5* hotels different
“The properties who’ve achieved the Forbes Travel Guide Five Star award have exceeded guests’ expectations at every turn. Their staff are fully engaged within the guest experience and feature rigorously studied what their guests are trying to find and invested deeply in training their teams to know and deliver against their guest’s expectations.”
What impact do you are expecting this announcement can have at the other ‘5-star properties’ {in step with other ratings providers} around the capital
“Our hope is that by announcing the Forbes Travel Guide Star Ratings in London that it’ll establish a degree set against the typical guest experience. Our practice is to guage all properties equally and to conduct a rigorous 2 night/3 day inspection that covers approximately 500 service standards plus a different set of facility-based standards. Our hope is that the implications may be met with respectful understanding of our detailed and rigorous process.”
The Forbes Travel Guide star-rating system have been a premier within the global hotel industry since 1958 and is different as it is heavily involved in service – taking the guess workout of hotel bookings for the discerning traveller. Professional anonymous inspectors evaluate each hotel against greater than 550 service criteria alongside the common-or-garden of the building and its facilities to create the ratings system.
From launch, travellers could be ready to access full free reviews of the head London hotels via Startle.com. Forbes also offers to partner with the hotels in the course of the Global Star Rating Program to assist them understand the rating they’ve received and identify areas for improvement within the next evaluation to improve their guests experience and subsequently their rating.
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