Anybody who has ever travelled has become accustomed to the star system. We use it to rank hotels, airlines and other services, and we generally understand what it means.
Two stars means ordinary; five stars is excellent. Of course, we now sometimes hear of six- or seven-star properties, which is where the system becomes a bit fuzzy.
But these star systems only go so far in telling us what we really want to know.
In general, the stars refer to levels of comfort and attention from the staff. And not everybody necessarily prioritises these factors.
An American Express Travel agent once booked me into a three-star property in Mumbai. On a comfort and service level, it was a fair assessment. But I felt terribly unsafe there.
Perhaps that says more about me than the hotel, but the thing is that, it didn’t meet my expectations — and, at the time, I felt that I had been somehow misled by an agency that I trusted.
These days, of course, we have TripAdvisor and Google reviews that are designed to tell us as much as possible about the experience we are about to book. But we also know that these filters can be tricked by business competitors and other vexatious people.
As with all of our other online experiences, we have to accept that not everything we see can be taken at face value.
The upside is that we have access to more information than ever before. The key is that when you are considering booking a hotel or other travel experience, work out what your own priorities there and then search and search some more.
Sometimes the star rating doesn’t tell the full story.
But there is an opportunity there for somebody to offer a more sophisticated system that tells us exactly what we want to know.
