Only 5 percent of hotels in Ukraine have passed the categorization for establishing their star-rating – expert

Ihor Kanievsky, the coordinator of the CHECK Center of Consumer Control said that only five percent of hotels in Ukraine have passed the categorization for establishing their star-rating and can give foreigners a clear idea of the expected level of service in these establishments.

According to his words, during the examination of the hotel infrastructure along the main routes of tourists, travelling by car – the guests of Euro-2012, the experts found discrepancy between the real capacities of the local hospitality industry and the official statistics numbers that are being operated by the authorities while evaluating the level of readiness of the hotel infrastructure to accomodate a high number of guests during Euro-2012.

According to the data of the center, apart from the 1,731 hotels that have been officially certified according to safety requirements in Ukraine, there are over 6,000 private persons – entrepreneurs who provide accommodation services. Thus, about 8,000 establishments in the country provide accommodation for tourists.

At that, 849 out of 1,731 establishments are classified as hotels, while the other 882 are motels, camp sites etc. Only 393 hotels out of the certified 849 have passed the categorization for establishing their star-rating – including 9 five-star, 67 four-star and 317 one- two- and three-star hotels.

The center’s coordinator noted that there are about 400 certified hotels in the towns that are to host Euro-2012. According to his estimations, each town can take in 10-20 thousand tourists in the certified hotels, whereas from 600,000 to 1 million foreigners may come to the Championship.

Kanievsky noted that any hotel that wants to “get stars” must first pass the obligatory certification and then the categorization procedure.

According to him, these procedures involve too much bureaucracy and take too much time. Today these procedures are being carried out by organizations that have nothing to do with the hotel business and the consumer’s opinion is simply ignored.

The expert noted that this problem may be solved by cancelling the obligatory certification of the hotels as an overregulated procedure. There should be only categorization in order for the tourists to have an idea about the level of service in this or that establishment.

“There is an initiative which offers cancelling the certification and getting straight to the hotel categorization, i.e., giving the stars to everybody, who in this or that way asserted themselves as a hotel or a place for tourists to live at,” he said.

The research was conducted by the CHECK center’s experts during the preparation for the publication in Ukraine of the first English-Russian guide for tourists, travelling by car – “UKRAINE for guests 2012.” During the research, the journalists have co-vered 10,000 kilometers, from Chop in the West of Ukraine to Izvaryne in the East; they have visited the “Euro cities”; they have evaluated the quality of the roads and infrastructure. Thanks to their effort, all the objects along the routes of foreign tourists, travelling by car, on the highways and in the cities that are to host the continental championship will be described on the 360 pages of the guide.