Moscow Hotels Try to Add Stars To Themselves

(Source: Travel Weekly China)

In 2018, Russia will host the FIFA World Cup and thus measures are taken to manage the influx of tourists, such as the rating and classification of hotels. Moscow will be the main city of the football feast from June 14 to July 15, 2018. Recently, many Moscow hotels seemed to have improved their star ratings.

The Luzhniki and Spartak stadiums in Moscow will be the main venues for the FIFA Cup. Thus, preparations are in progress in the city, with some complications already arising. Since the beginning of the year about 100 Moscow hotels have been caught improving their category (star rating) in online booking systems.

The hotel management department of the Sports and Tourism Department is checking the numbers of stars that hotels indicate on the internet. They then compare it to the real category obtained through state classification. As of now, most Moscow hotels have corrected information about their facilities. Others, who have not yet done so, are in the process.

According to the head of the Department of Sport and Tourism of Moscow, Nikolai Gulyaev, a total of more than a thousand hotels and hostels in Moscow have been monitored. Monitoring continues and is maintained on a daily basis. Specialists review booking sites such as booking.com, hrs.com, travel.ru etc.

"Booking sites are in fact a giant live message board. The information there is updated regularly. Every day our staff checks several dozens of hotels that publish information about themselves in the reservation systems," Gulyaev said.

Most often hotels without stars overstate their category. The Minister said that most hotels do this unintentionally. Typically, these violations occur when hotels did not have time to change the star rating after classification on the booking site. Receptionists correct their mistakes shortly after a written request or a call from the staff of the Department arrives.

"If the hotel refuses to voluntarily correct inaccurate data on the Internet, information about such hotels will be transferred to the Office of the Federal Antimonopoly Service in Moscow. Hotels overstating their category on booking sites violate federal law "On Protection of Competition". But so far there has been no such case," Gulyaev added.

To date, the classification took place in 1020 of the Moscow hotels. 30 of these are five star hotels, 80 four-star, 209 hotels are three-star facilities, 109 two-star and 41 are one-star hotels. The category "no stars" was assigned to 551 hotels. Since January 1 of this year, hotels that have not passed the classification are subject to administrative responsibility.

Classification is needed to provide reliable information to the buyer of the service he gets. If the hotel does not quite live up to the stated star, it is assigned to a lower category. Hotels are obliged to confirm their status every three years.