Michelin Guide to start rating hotels as it rates restaurants

Michelin Guide hotel rating overview: 

• Who: Restaurant reviewer Michelin Guide has announced it will begin designating a “Michelin key” to hotels and accommodations around the world that it deems worthy of receiving one.  
• Why: Michelin Guide said it wants to create a hotel rating system with its Michelin key that will be similar to that of its MICHELIN star system.
• Where: Michelin Guide plans to review hotels and accommodations in 120 countries for a possible Michelin key. 

Establishment reviewer Michelin Guide announced it will begin rating hotels around the world using what it is referring to as a Michelin key to “distinguish exceptional establishments led by teams with unique forms of knowledge.” 

Michelin Guide said, in a post on its website earlier this month, that it has chosen more than 5,000 hotels and other accommodations in a total of 120 countries to review, with the first Michelin key selection to be revealed in the first half of next year. 

“After 4 years of work, the Michelin Guide teams have rethought their hotel selection. Like restaurants, the Michelin Guide intends to independently recommend establishments that constitute true destinations,” the company states. 

Michelin Guide said it will award its Michelin key designation to hotels after at least one stay is conducted anonymously by its selection teams. 

Michelin Guide says it will choose without ‘existing labels,’ ‘pre-established quotas’

Michelin Guide said that its recommendations are based on five criteria: how the hotel contributes to the local experience, its architecture and interior design, its quality of upkeep, the consistency it has between the quality of the experience and the price paid and how it shows a unique personality. 

“We wish to arouse the emotion of customers by directing them towards establishments that excel in all areas — architectural choices, the art of craftsmanship and detail to doing a job, and asserting your own personality. 

The company said its Michelin key selections, meanwhile, will be “developed independently of existing labels and without pre-established quotas,” and aim to, among other things, “precede or extend a gastronomic outing with a memorable hotel stay.” 

Michelin Guide also wants to “guide travelers to boutique accommodations that offer much more than a room for a night,” and allow travelers to “choose, book and comment” on their stays on a “single independent platform,” according to its website post. 

In other news involving the hospitality industry, a consumer filed a class action lawsuit against a number of casino hotels in Atlantic City, New Jersey, in August, arguing they were working together to fix the prices for their guest rooms. 

What do you think about Michelin Guide’s decision to start rating hotels? Let us know in the comments.

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