Content : Quality
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There is at present very little at European or international level in terms of common quality schemes for the hospitality sector. Recently, however, the EU institutions have started putting increasing emphasis on these issues.
One of the key aims of the Directive on services in the internal market (2006/123/EC) is to strengthen the rights of consumers as users of services, which involves requiring greater transparency and information from service providers. The Directive refers thus to the need for better information on the meaning of quality labels, in particular “in the hotel business, in which a system of classification is widespread” (recital 102 of the preamble). It also provides that voluntary European standards with the aim of, inter alia, facilitating information to the recipient and the quality of service provision should be encouraged (Article 26:5).
HOTREC position
HOTREC acknowledges the need for improving consumers’ access to information about quality labels. There is also reason for the European hospitality industry to cooperate more in enhancing the quality of services.
To meet the needs for a better quality of services, HOTREC is working on the development of the “European Hospitality Quality scheme”, an umbrella quality scheme for national quality schemes and quality schemes of hotel chains established in several EU countries. This scheme is meant to be used as a reference model at European level. The umbrella scheme is not intended to replace the quality schemes which already exist at national/regional level, but it proposes a system for evaluating them.