Crowning confusion

THE Crown classification scheme for hotels and guesthouses has bitten off more than it can chew. In trying to provide information on all types of tourist accommodation, it has alienated operators at the cheaper end, and confused the consumer.

According to an English Tourist Board survey (see page 9), two- thirds of overseas tourists don't understand the scheme.

Within the industry, too, it has become discredited among those very people for whom it could have brought the biggest benefit - the small, low-tariff establishments. Every time the scheme has been "improved", say these small businesses, it has cost them money, because they have been required to add facilities or services which they say their customers do not want.

Crowns are the closest thing Britain has to a national registration scheme for tourist accommodation - though stars are probably understood more widely in most countries. Compulsory registration, last considered in the 1970s, is now unthinkable given the present Government's philosophy, though the European Community may well yet raise the issue.

The job of any classification scheme is to provide the consumer with information about where to stay. And yet the consumer's interests seem to have been forgotten, resulting in confusion.

Before he or she chooses a hotel or bed and breakfast establishment, the customer must first choose a classification scheme - the tourist boards' scheme is not the only one.

As alternatives to crowns, there are a sun, moon and stars (in various colours), pavilions and even fireplaces. That's just for accommodation. If the customer wants to eat as well as having a bed for the night, he or she will have to struggle through a menu of rosettes, knives and forks, red "M"s and blue ribands.

There is a way of creating a sensible, coherent scheme from this confusion. The British Tourist Authority (BTA) should arrange for either the AA or the RAC - or both - to run a star-based hotel scheme on its behalf. This would be along the lines of the star classification schemes which these two organisations currently run, but would receive the official imprimatur of the BTA.

Regional and local tourist boards would thus be freed from the task of inspecting and classifying hotels. They could concentrate the Crown scheme, on guest houses, B&Bs and small hotels.