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South Korea revising hotel rating system
The state-run Korea Tourism Organization is launching a new hotel rating system to better reflect international hospitality standards.
Tourism officials said the new rating system will be based on a scale of 1-5 stars, rather than the national flower symbol currently in use.
Since 1971 Korean hotels were rated on the ‘mugunghwa’ flower-based system that ranked hotels into five different categories based on points but was difficult to compare standards with hotels using the international five-star rating system.
"There have been concerns that the Korean hotel rating system fails to serve as an indicator of the quality of service that the hotels offers. Specifically, there have been complaints that Korea has too many top-rated hotels whose service doesn’t match international standards," said Yong Seon-joong, KTO director of tourism infrastructure.
The KTO will use 100 hospitality experts to rate 800 hotels nationwide.
Inspections will take place at hotels under 3 stars and unannounced visits to 4 and 5 star properties.
The new rating system will review guestrooms and bathrooms, food and beverages oules, meeting facilities, and customer service standards.
"The biggest difference between the old rating system and the new one is the unannounced trips by officials to hotels," said Han Jin-soo, a member of the hotel inspection team and a professor of hotel management at Kyung Hee University.
"The system should act as an effective tool that contributes to the development of the Korean hotel industry," he said.
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