Ratings hinder small hotels

01 January 2000
Ratings hinder small hotels

The AA has recently introduced two new hotel specifications, the Town House and the Lodge, which for the customer is an exciting innovation.

These new classifications do not require star ratings for inclusion in the AA's main guides. In these hotels, the balance between services provided and the physical properties of the building can be changed to create products at differing levels of cost.

It is exciting to see these changes but they are happening at the cost of some small hoteliers who are being denied the chance to compete on a level playing field. Walk the streets of towns such as Bath and Cheltenham in the evening and look through the restaurant windows of the small one- and two-star hotels. Most of them, unless they are particularly well-known for food, have so few diners that they are losing money on their dinner sales.

In most cases, these small hotels could make an adequate living from selling just rooms and breakfast. And yet they continue working from breakfast to dinner without improving their profitability. So, why do they offer dinner for little or no return?

The reason is simple: they need a star rating. If they do not serve dinner they cannot achieve this accolade and so cannot get into the main AA guide, which after all is a valuable place to be listed. Yet, ironically, the course they have to tread to become starred marginalises small hotels and drives the owners out of business.

In towns where restaurants are plentiful, it does not seem so important for small hotels to jump through the AA's hoop for the sake of a star rating. Town houses do not even have to provide breakfast, never mind dinner, and the purchase of food at a lodge is a separate contract, in some cases with a separate company.

In fact, if the guests in small hotels were all to eat out, it would improve the local restaurant market. The Charing Cross Tower Hotel in Glasgow, for example, treats its restaurant as a breakfast room and for other meals has arranged deals on behalf of its customers with local pubs and restaurants.

Why, then, does the AA not introduce a classification for small hotels that will give them more choice over whether or not they want to provide dinner or breakfast? It works well enough on the Continent where pensions or hotel garnis are most acceptable places to stay, yet don't serve food.

Small hotels are the "corner shops" of the hotel industry - and we all know what supermarkets have done to business at corner shops. The hospitality in small hotels is often better than in other categories, the prices are lower and they fill in the geographical corners of the market where the Fortes of this world don't want to go. They also provide a buffer in times of excessive demand, for instance during Cheltenham Gold Cup week.

Can we, therefore, hope to see in the near future the introduction of a new classification to suit this lower end of the market?

The AA has bent over backwards to market what will probably be a hundred posh town houses - and a whole new category has been created for Sir Rocco's lodges. So how about giving these small, marginal properties a chance. Or is there another game plan altogether?

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