Noisy rooms are still the No. 1 complaint among hotel guests world wide. Now that their reviews have a serious impact on hotel policies, hotels will increasingly feel the need to create quiet rooms. And now there is a truly objective measuring system for quiet hotel rooms: the Quiet Room® label. The Quiet Room® label aims to stimulate the creation of quiet hotel rooms and provide information for travellers looking for quiet hotel rooms. Hotels interested in acquiring the Quiet Room® label have to meet severe standards and are thoroughly tested.The Quiet Room® label provides a classification for silent hotel rooms with 3 categories. Rooms that meet the standards are by definition well built and sound insulated. Travellers looking for a quiet hotel room van visit the label’s website at www.quiethotelroom.org/en/
Dutch hotels will now start using the system of the Hotelstars Union which is used by Germany, Denmark and the Benelux countries among others. But here is the catch: hotels are free to join in or not. In fact they are free to award themselves as many stars as they want. Strange?
Yes and no. Yes, because the star rating system pretends to be a help to travellers and offer some indication of the standards and services of hotels. Well, that is now really a thing of the past. No, because hotel stars have lately been losing their importance: traveller’s reviews and their impact on hotels’ reputations have become much more important.
This is a welcome development, because after all it’s the travellers who pay for the services. It forces hotels to listen even more carefully to their guests. And it will also help to correct a blatant omission in the star rating system: the absence of noise and sound insulation as a criterion in the grading of hotels.
