Having been a journalist for 25 years and specialised in hotel business, Maria Pütz-Willems travelled the world for 16 years as a freelance journalist for leading hotel and tourism publications. Always with a certain feeling for trends and ideas and staying in permanent contact with international dialogue partners. In 2005, she launched the online magazine www.hospitaliyInside.com, a bilingual network for international hotel business.
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7 Stars: Fact or Fraud?
It's the "wow effect" that dazzles everyone. The hotel has 7 stars (!). Just visualize that: * * * * * * *, truly glittering on the hotel's glossy brochure and in the eyes of future guests. In comparison, * * * * * look just a bit sad. So what really is the difference between 7 stars and 6 or 5 stars? The exorbitant room price or the receptionist grinning like a Cheshire cat? The big players in hotel business love pretty illusions and within those, they love themselves the most. Those who sell a show also have to stage a show. That's where the 7 stars come in handy.
Officially, 6 and 7 star ratings do not exist. Hotel classifications all over the world only go up to 5 stars. This alone is already enough material for discussions. And enough material for daydreaming, too. Show me a traveller who isn't dreaming about hotel staff who read their guests' minds, magically takes the suitcases to their room and organizes the best table in the small romantic restaurant in the blink of an eye. No 5 star hotel yet can fulfil all of these tasks with this kind of perfection. So is the secret of the sparkling 7 stars? It's quite simple, really. They raise the incoming guests' expectations into the sky, into superlative heaven. Just to have them consequently crash down onto the floor of reality even harder.
Let's face it: 5 stars is as good as it gets. Everything else is creating dream castles in one's head. This is true for travellers as well as hoteliers. There is no such thing as 7 stars. We will just have to live with that fact.
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