A grand lobby, Michelin-starred food and a spectacular pool.
These are things travelers may think of when they hear the term – five-star hotel.
But Marina Bay Sands — one of the most iconic landmarks here in Singapore
has all those things yet is rated only four stars.
Or is it?
On Booking.com, MBS is a five-star hotel.
And guests on Tripadvisor think it deserves even more.
But travel guide Frommers only gives it three stars.
What is going on here?
How can one hotel have so many different star ratings?
And what do these ratings really mean?
To find out, we’ve got to go back to 1958.
Five-star hotel ratings in the United States are said to have roots — not with a travel company
— but with the oil and gas corporation Mobil, now part of ExxonMobil.
Employees traveling around the U.S. devised a system to rate hotels while on the road.
The ratings became a guidebook, which through time would become what is now
the Forbes Travel Guide.
Fast forward to today, and there are countless magazines, guidebooks
and websites that rate hotels.
And in places like Australia, India and Dubai, stars are awarded by governments
and tourism boards.
The problem is, each has its own rating system.
Remember Frommer’s three-star rating for Marina Bay Sands?
That’s because the company only rates hotels from one to three stars.
And if that wasn't confusing enough, there’s the American Automobile Association,
which uses diamonds rather than stars.
So, can the stars be aligned?
There was a lot of buzz about a project called “World Hotel Rating,” which was set to unify
hotel standards around the globe.
But that was more than a decade ago, and nothing has materialized yet.
Confusion over hotel stars has led to some bad press.
Some say they are useless, while others simply want to know:
Do hotel star ratings mean anything anymore?
Yes, says Tim Hentschel, CEO of the travel technology company HotelPlanner.
I caught up with him to learn more.
We actually find that star ratings are quite valuable to our customers.
When you go to pick your dates and your destination city within a hotel search,
typically the first filter set is the star rating.
In the United Kingdom, the two main organizations that award hotels stars —
the AA motoring association and the tourism board Visit England — award stars using the same criteria.
They also display their ratings on one website.
The non-profit organization Hotelstars Union has gone a step further.
It uses common criteria to unify star ratings across Europe.
So far, 20 countries have signed on, and more than 22,000 hotels have been classified.
But Europe’s most popular countries to visit have not.
France, Spain and Italy each have their own rating systems,
which are run by national or regional governments.
But despite all the hotel star rating variations, Tim assured me there are
some commonalities between them that people can rely on.
At a one-star hotel, Triple A says travelers can expect a bed, pillow and a bargain.
Rooms are clean, but basic.
Two-star hotels also lack frills,
but they usually have private bathrooms, phones, televisions
and perhaps, continental breakfast.
Hotels with three stars are a noticeable step up in comfort, often with restaurants,
room service and gyms.
Youth sports team travelers want a three star and because they love the free breakfast,
they know that these three stars come with a pool that's family friendly,
and they don't need something like 24/7 room service
because you put the kids to sleep by nine o'clock.
At the four-star level, everything from rooms to lobbies to pools is bigger.
There are often bellhops, valet parking attendants
and a concierge team to help guests enjoy their stay.
Research shows about a third of travelers won’t consider hotels
with fewer than four stars.
At the top of the list is the five-star hotel, the ultimate luxury stay with plush bedding,
fine dining restaurants and opulent spas.
But Yngvar Stray, the general manager of Capella Singapore,
says those things alone aren’t enough.
If you want to be a true, high-end luxury five-star hotel,
your physical product needs to be immaculate.
It cannot be a cookie cutter hotel.
it needs to be uniquely special.
The people that have to have a passion for coming here.
Not to work,
but coming here for excellence.
Everything revolves around the guest.
But Yngvar says the biggest difference between a 4- and 5-star hotel is a feeling.
That extra feeling that says Wow, that was special because the emotional connection
is what people will remember in the long term.
Capella Singapore is one of only three hotels in the country
to be awarded five stars by Forbes Travel Guide.
It’s a quiet escape built inside 30 acres of rainforest on the island of Sentosa,
off Singapore’s southern coast.
Guests check into the hotel in a restored colonial-era house built in the 1880s,
while the 112 rooms and suites and cascading trio of pools
date to the hotel’s opening in 2009.
In London, a five-star hotel looks like this: The Langham, which was named London’s
“Best Hotel for Business Travelers” by CNBC in 2022.
Its marble columns and paneled walls lead to one-bedroom suites,
which come with separate lounge areas and a bottle of Champagne.
The Langham is famous for its afternoon tea, which is said to have been served
since the hotel first opened in 1865.
Over in Dubai, five stars looks like the Four Seasons Resort Dubai at Jumeirah Beach.
It has a beautifully decorated lobby, wide corridors, temperature-controlled pools,
and a luxurious spa with separate areas for men and women,
all which are on Dubai’s 41-page five-star hotel checklist.
The list also requires rooms to come with hangers that are not affixed to the rail,
and bathrobes made of at least 90% natural fibers.
And what about Dubai’s Burj Al Arab, and other hotels that have been dubbed
quote “seven-star hotels?”
I think it came from an inflation of people rating a mid-scale or upper mid-scale hotel
a five-star hotel, while luxury and ultra-luxury hotel have same rating but being a very different experience.
So it was to create a differentiation from the masses.
It’s all self-proclaimed. There's no verification, there's no guidelines,
there's no authority that gives these types of ratings or classifications at all.
To move up an entire star rating, you'd have to put a property on the moon,
you'd have to put a property underwater,
something that has never really been done before.
There’s still one more problem with the system of diamonds and stars.
Travelers are increasingly turning to a more modern method
to evaluate a potential hotel stay: online reviews.
In a global survey of more than 23,000 Tripadvisor users,
86% said online reviews made them feel more confident to book.
Users read an average of nine reviews before making a decision,
saying recent reviews matter to them the most.
Why do travelers rely, or trust, online reviews more than the star rating systems?
That’s inherent in the way we live and breathe today.
And it is about having the interest, the inquisitee of reading about other’s people’s experiences.
People like to have verification, they like to have enforcement
that I’m buying the right product.
Reviews are the pot of gold behind the star rating,
and every online travel agency publishes both.
But online reviews can be problematic, too.
Hotels deal with fake and misleading reviews, written by travelers, and occasionally competitors.
There is no real vetting process.
People can write whatever they like.
Most of the time, by all means, they are genuine expressions of their feeling of the stay.
So where does that leave star ratings?
If travelers can see reviews, photographs and prices with a few clicks of a mouse,
are hotel stars still relevant in the age of the internet?
Yngvar says yes, if that is they are awarded by agencies that use specific standards
and professional inspectors.
However he added online reviews matter too, as do readers’ choice awards
from publications like Conde Nast Traveler.
There are other ways today that people determine what makes a great hotel.
Star ratings may remain important for an entirely new reason.
Surveys show travelers increasingly want hotels to be eco-friendly.
And right now, many hotels are relying on third-party certifications to prove they are doing this.
But to earn five stars in Dubai, a hotel must have a written sustainability policy
that addresses energy efficiency, water conservation
and a preference for local, fair-trade and environmentally friendly goods.
Could you foresee in the future that in order to have, keep or acquire a five-star rating
with one of the big legacy star rating providers,
that you would need to demonstrate sustainability and eco-friendly policies?
That is actually not something of the future, that is actually very current.
And it’s not necessarily because a third party rater says it,
it is because of guests require it,
and the younger generation more than anybody else.