Hotel Brand Standards: Top Rating Systems and Best Practices

Hotel standards are essential for brands that want to stay ahead of the competition and achieve consistency in service quality. In addition to establishing their own hotel brand standards, hoteliers can use external standards to improve their ratings and boost guest confidence. They can choose from many widely accepted hotel industry standards, such as Forbes, LQA, or LHW. 

This article is a deep dive into hotel standards and why they are important. It also outlines the most recognized external standards and rating systems in the hospitality industry and explains how hotels can incorporate technology to attain the best ratings.

Hotel Standards: What They Are and Why They Matter

Hotel standards are rules or operational requirements that define the brand image of a hotel or group of hotels. These hotel standards and guidelines typically encompass a wide range of areas and outline what customers can expect in terms of service quality and amenities. Critical aspects explored in creating hospitality industry standards include architectural design, ambiance, furnishing, customer interaction and service, and management practices.

As the competition for a finite pool of clients continues to increase, leading hotel brands are constantly evolving their approach to customer service to retain their existing client base and attract more visitors. One way of achieving uniformity in quality of service delivery is by incorporating hotel brand standards across all their branches.

Why should you pay attention to and create brand standards for your hotel chain? Here are a few reasons:

1. Maintain Brand Reputation

For businesses in the hospitality industry, reputation is everything. How customers perceive your hotel is vital for your bottom line and organizational growth. However, building a consistent brand image can be challenging without clearly stated hospitality standards.

Furthermore, for individuals who operate a franchise, hotel standards are the most effective way to hit the ground running and ensure that you maintain the global best practices associated with your brand.

2. Guarantee Customer Loyalty

One of the most demanding aspects of running a hotel is customer retention. The hospitality industry has one of the lowest overall customer retention rates globally, with only 55%. This figure is 25% lower than the average across all industries. The impact of this statistic is that many hotels are unlikely to see guests return.

By incorporating brand standards, hospitality businesses can mitigate this outcome and promote visitor loyalty to the brand by eliminating uncertainty in service delivery. Guests will be more inclined to revisit when they are assured of consistent top-quality treatment and world-class amenities.

3. Create a Blueprint for Staff Training and Performance

Staff are the pillars of any establishment. Popular hotel chains have hundreds of staff and use hotel standards to ensure that all employees understand the company culture. Regardless of the size of your workforce, hospitality standards are critical if you wish to create a thorough system free from operational errors.

4. Raise Occupancy Rates

While spending thousands of dollars on ads brings customers, nothing beats word-of-mouth recommendations from guests. Hotels with a great reputation tend to have increased occupancy rates and achieve organic growth faster than their counterparts.

An effective way to attract new guests and create a niche in a competitive hospitality industry is to be known for impeccable service across all your branches. Fortunately, you can implement a unified approach and guarantee customer satisfaction by establishing hotel standards.

How Hotel Chains and Management Companies Achieve Brand Consistency Across Multiple Countries

Maintaining a single, unified brand experience becomes exponentially more challenging for hotel chains or management companies operating across multiple regions. Differences in languages, cultures, legal regulations, and supply chains can quickly compromise hotel brand consistency if not managed strategically.

Global hospitality leaders rely on a multi-faceted approach to ensure that a guest receives the same high-quality brand experience whether they are in London, Singapore, or New York:

1. Centralized Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs)

Every international brand maintains a detailed, centralized “Brand Bible” that dictates the core brand guidelines for the hotel. This document outlines the non-negotiable foundation of the brand’s promise, encompassing all aspects from the required design elements and staff uniforms to the precise steps for check-in and housekeeping.

By creating standardized hospitality SOPs, the hotel ensures that all global locations start from the same benchmark of service quality and operational performance.

2. Strategic Localization

While the core brand identity must remain rigid, effective hotel management companies understand the necessity of strategic adaptation. They tailor SOPs to meet specific regional requirements, such as:

• Legal Compliance: Adapting to local labor laws and regional health and safety regulations.
• Cultural Nuance: Incorporating localized service gestures, language training, and menu items to respect regional guest preferences.

This localization is carefully controlled to ensure it never violates the fundamental principles of the brand promise.

3. Unified Monitoring and Auditing Frameworks

This is the critical step that makes hospitality brand standards globally scalable. Multilocation hotel brand consistency cannot be achieved by relying on slow, paper-based audits. Leading hotel groups utilize digitized inspection platforms to centralize control over decentralized operations.

These technology solutions allow the central management team to:

• Distribute a Single Set of Checklists: Quickly deploy and update the standardized SOPs to every location worldwide in an accessible, digitized format.
• Track Compliance in Real Time: Monitor audit scores and performance metrics from a centralized dashboard, regardless of the country or language in which the inspection took place.
• Close the Loop: Immediately identify any international consistency gaps and assign corrective actions directly through the app.

Major hotel management companies like Hilton and Marriott use the GoAudits hotel audit app to digitize their SOPs into simple checklists and manage audits. This allows the team to monitor compliance with brand standards across locations in real-time and take prompt corrective actions.

Industry’s Top Hospitality Standards

Before booking accommodation at a hotel, most guests use the hotel’s star rating to determine its quality of service and amenities, cleanliness, and ambiance. Although many of these rating systems exist, the five-star rating system is arguably the most common in the United States.

Graded on a scale of one to five, this rating system gives guests insights into the degree of comfort and luxury they can anticipate from a hotel.

Many organizations, such as Forbes, Leading Hotels of the World (LHW), the International Organization for Standardization (ISO), and the Leading Quality Assurance (LQA) Organization, have personalized rating systems. A high rating by any of these reputable authorities is a significant stamp of approval that can influence guests to visit your hotel.

However, to be accredited by these bodies, hotels must comply with strict requirements. Here, we cover some of the most recognized global rating systems and their pre-established hospitality industry standards.

1. Forbes Standards

Forbes Standards is one of the oldest rating systems, dating as far back as 1958, when it was used as the foremost five-star evaluation system in the hospitality industry in the United States. To receive a high rating from the Forbes Travel Guide, hotels are assessed based on 900 criteria by an independent crop of professional inspectors.

Hotels that successfully scale through this evaluation usually perform meticulous self-inspections using checklists. They also carry out diligent staff training and stay updated with the latest best practices.

2. LQA Standards

Leading Quality Assurance (LQA) is well-known for its quality assurance audits. With sufficient industry experience, having conducted over 25,000 individual hotel service assessments for brands in over 130 countries, they have become a reputable benchmark for performance globally.

The LQA standards involve anonymous on-site assessments of up to 800 criteria across various departments to determine the quality of your hotel. Some areas examined by LQA consultants include restaurant service, reception checks, and dining.

Popular hotel brands such as Rosewood, Pullman, Radisson, and Trident Hotels have used LQA Standards to grow revenues and optimize guest experience. To prepare with internal audits and favorable feedback from LQA auditors, hoteliers can use any of our free hotel inspection checklist templates.

Here are a few LQA checklists to start with:

• LQA Food & Beverages Audit Checklist
• LQA Reception Checklist
• LQA Room Dining Checklist
• LQA Room Audit Checklist
• LQA Restaurant Services Audit Checklist

3. ISO Standards

The International Organization for Standardization is a globally recognized body that creates and publishes international standards to promote best practices and increase business productivity. ISO standards affect food and safety management, quality management, occupational health and safety, and several other areas.

There are many ISO standards for brands in the hospitality industry. However, the most common are ISO 9001, ISO 45001, and ISO 22000. The ISO does not directly certify hotels. However, hotels can request certification from third-party bodies that will evaluate them based on the ISO criteria.

4. LHW Standards

The Leading Hotels of the World (LHW) represents the largest exclusive collection of five-star hotels worldwide. It has existed since 1928 and has grown to include over 400 hotels in 80 countries. To become a part of this elite group, hotels must scale through a rigorous evaluation process with up to 1,200 criteria consisting of up to 30 questions for each department.

LHW inspections are carried out anonymously and cover every detail of a hotel’s service, from the front desk to the room service, restaurant, and valet parking. Hotels that successfully complete this assessment must ensure they maintain compliance with best hotel standards because they will be re-evaluated every two to three years.

Tools to Improve Brand Standards in Hospitality

Using simple and clear hotel checklists for frequent self-audits is a time-tested method to ensure consistency. You can create checklists for each department to keep track of standards relevant to their area, daily/weekly tasks, and standard operating procedures.

Here are a few SOPs and checklists to help you get started:

• Hotel Maintenance Checklists
• Hotel Housekeeping Checklists
• Room Service SOPs
• Hotel Kitchen SOPs
• Hotel Security Checklists

Achieving high ratings and ensuring compliance with industry-recognized standards such as Forbes, LQA, and LHW is easier when you use digitized checklists. Inspection apps are beneficial for hotels that wish to stay relevant and incorporate global best practices.

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