Mauritius tourism authority reveals new hotel grading criteria
Monday 23, April 2012
The Mauritius Minister for Tourism Mr. Michael Sik Yuen earlier this week made public the criteria to be used for the classification and grading of hotels across the island.
Aimed at enhancing the quality of services and reflect the reality of how clients see a hotel’s standing vis a vis the present self styled allocation of ‘stars’, the new system was developed by the MTPA in close cooperation with international advisors, local stakeholders and tourism experts.
It is not clear though, if the Mauritius model of grading and classification of hotels, resorts, lodges, inns and restaurants has been done with any consultation with the other ‘Vanilla Islands’ to be comparable across other Indian Ocean main tourist destinations, similar to the development of East Africa’s catalogue of criteria for grading and classification of hospitality businesses under the auspices of the East African Community, or if the Mauritius model has been developed purely for Mauritius alone and hence in some degree of isolation.
The question has been sent, if alternatively – RETOSA recently held a meeting of SADC tourism ministers in Port Louis – the new system has been harmonized with SADC or been aligned with other RETOSA member countries as a regular contributor from the island has questioned: ‘It is all fair and good to put such a new system into place. But first, how capable is MTPA, how are the human resources in regard of training those doing the rating and grading. We all know how MTPA compares in the Indian Ocean region when it comes to promoting our tourism industry where others are capturing the limelight ahead of us. Secondly, were those criteria in any way created by looking at what other SADC members have done, or have we now reinvented the wheel. There are always close contacts with Seychelles, has their system been looked at and been compared?’ Justified questions and perhaps answers will be forthcoming, so as the saying here goes, watch this space.
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