You're reading: Expert: Only 5% of Ukrainian hotels have star-rating (advertisement)

Igor Kanievskiy, the coordinator of the "CHECK" Center of Consumer Control said that only 5% 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 investigation 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 for taking in the great number of guests during Euro-2012.

According to the data of the center, apart from the 1731 hotel that are officially certified according to safety requirements in Ukraine, there are over 6 thousand private persons – entrepreneurs who provide accommodation services. Thus, about 8 thousand establishments in the country provide accommodation for tourists.

At that, 849 establishments of the 1731 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 hotels, 67 four-star and 317 one- two- and three-star.

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

Igor Kanievskiy 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 conducted by organizations that have no concern 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. Only the categorization should be kept 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, meaning – 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 covered 10 thousand km, 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.


OUR PRODUCT (044) 593 61 44