THE Philippines Department of Tourism (DoT) will roll out a pilot programme to audit more than 800 hotels in the Philippines and confer them a star rating using the department’s newly-adopted accreditation standard for hotels and resorts in the country.
The audit will be rolled out in two parts. The first part will operate with technical assistance from Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenabeit, running six months beginning 4Q2013. According to DoT director for tourism standards and regulations, Rica Bueno, 737 hotels nationwide have been invited and have up to July 15 to join the audit, the results of which would be valid for two years instead of the usual one under DoT’s current accreditation process.
Following soon would be a parallel programme funded with a technical assistance grant DoT received last April from Asian Development Bank and Canadian International Development Agency (TTG Asia e-Daily, April 12, 2013), in which another 100 hotels from Cebu, Boracay, Bohol, and Palawan will be invited to join the audit.
In both programmes, the audit will confer ratings based on the Qualmark points-based system from New Zealand. Bueno said a consultant who had worked as Qualmark’s director previously was tapped to oversee the process.
Travel consultants who welcomed the measure said this would do more to improve the image of the department, which currently undertook the process itself.
“I’m all for it,” said Paul So, managing director, Great Sights Travel & Tours, adding this would help eliminate “grey areas” in the current rating system.
Emy Malate, vice president for marketing at Image Travel and Tours, said DoT was doing well to “select a standard” and “follow a common procedure” for rating hotel and resort establishments, although travel consultants who understood their clients’ requirements and recommended hotels following client budgets would not have a problem either way.
“It’s not a really a problem; we know the properties and what is of interest to the client. It’s a matter of having a good relationship with your tour operator abroad,” Malate said.
