Many visitors to hotels in Russia have had stars in their eyes. But, until now, they’ve been pretty meaningless.

Now, the Economic Development and Trade Ministry is hoping to bring some sense to the method by which Russian hotels are classified. Market participants say the changes will prevent lower-quality hotels from using higher classifications than they are entitled to, along with helping to improve the image of Russian hotels in the eyes of foreign tourists.

As of Aug. 21, the Tourism Department has been certifying hotels according to new unified state classification system developed by the state standards agency. It’s a big change from the Soviet days in Russia. Then, the hotel-classification did not correspond to international standards in terms of either quality or designation.

Instead of the system of stars used elsewhere in the world, the Soviet Union used a scale that began with "luxury" at the most prestigious end and went down through "higher A," "higher B," first, second and third.

In 1994, the state-standards agency introduced a system of stars. Five stars were given not only to hotels in the luxury category, but also to those in the "higher A" and "higher B" categories.

The first-, second- and third-category hotels received three stars. This put the Rossia Hotel, for example, with its views of the Kremlin, in the same category as the Yunost Hotel, where most of the rooms are used as storage space for the Luzhniki market.

The old rules were changed in 2000 and were replaced by four voluntary classification systems. If a hotel did not get the desired classification under one system, it could turn to another and, usually, ended up getting the number of stars it wanted. This made it even more impossible to determine the hotel’s real category. The only obligation the state-standards agency put on the hotels was to ensure fire safety. But not all hoteliers were happy with this situation.

"There were around 25 certifying organizations in Moscow and practically no one to control them," said Yury Podkopayev, general director of the National Hotel. "This meant that ‘five-star’ hotels that in reality merited only three stars were misleading customers."

"Many Moscow hotels were complaining of competitors who offered less comfort but were positioning their hotels in a higher category," said Marina Smirnova, deputy marketing director of Hotel Consulting and Development Group. "In the regions, the situation was even worse. Hotels gave themselves the stars they wanted. There was essentially no controlling organization. Foreigners who had already been to the regions preferred to stay in hotels working under the brands of well-known hotel chains.."

Abbas Aliyev, general director of Intourist, said that, in recent years, the question of certifying hotels had become particularly urgent.

"The number of foreign tourists is growing – and so is the number of complaints about hotels not being up to the category they claim," he said.. "This is despite the fact that we try to inform travelers about exactly what awaits them in Russia. When it comes to individual tours, we end up having to choose hotels without knowing exactly what we’re getting."

The result of this confusion is that different floors in the same hotel can correspond to different categories. "There’s a need to have a precise classification of hotel rooms so that tourists know exactly what they’re paying for," said Natella Shengelia, head of the Economic Development and Trade Ministry’s tourism department. "There are hotels at the moment offering "Casanova" and "semi-luxury" suites, but consumers don’t know what level of service they actually come with. Three stars in Russia should mean just that – three stars, and not a hostel with bathroom and toilet at the end of the corridor."

The directors of Russian hotels that were suffering as a result of these policies asked the tourism department to bring some order to the sector. According to the Trade Ministry, there are around 4,000 hotels in Russia today, and more than 70 percent of them do not correspond to any of the generally recognized categories. The state-standards agency said there is no exact information on how many Russian hotels have a certificate and voluntarily observe all the state standards for the sector.

The new certification system was developed by the state-standards agency’s All-Russian Certification Scientific Research Institute (VNIIS). Last year, the Trade Ministry set up a working group to help develop the new standards. The work involved ministry officials and directors of 16 major hotels, who tested the newly developed system.

The old GOST 50645-94 state standard, or, rather, its Appendix A, which sets out the requirements for hotels of different classes, was taken as the base for the new system. The classification system also draws on the national systems used in France, Britain and the United States. Under the new Trade Ministry proposals, hotels will be able to receive a one- to five-star classification for two years. Once two years is up, the hotel will be inspected again to ensure that its rooms, infrastructure and service quality all measure up to the required standards.

The new system has basic requirements for the hotel and a point system for the quality and professionalism it offers. A three-star hotel, for example, must have a guarded car park, and each room should have air conditioning, a television, telephone and refrigerator. The hotel should also have a business center equipped with communications and photocopying technology, and clients should be able to use ticket booking and interpreter-guide services.

A classification office with independent experts at its disposal will be responsible for allocating the number of stars. VNIIS has also developed a system for selecting experts to ensure that they will be experienced specialists. These specialists will inspect the hotels and make a report that will then be analyzed by the classification office, which will make its recommendations to the certifying commission. From there, the documents are sent to the tourism department. Hotels will be able to appeal classification decisions to an appeals commission.

"We want to create a national classification system that will meet the demands of consumers," the Trade Ministry’s Shengelia said. "This new system will be used to classify hotels and other types of accommodation, except for specialized Health Ministry sanatoria. There will be non-categorized types of accommodation facilities and accommodation facilities categorized according to a system of one to five stars."

The new classification system is voluntary, but going through the certification procedure and getting stars will cost hotels around $500-$800, which, for large hotels, is not a major expense.

Alexander Bobylev, deputy general director of the Baltschug Kempinski, said his hotel would go through the necessary procedures.

But smaller hotels are not all convinced.

"Most likely, we won’t get new stars through the new Russian system," said Roman Nakashidze, press secretary for management company UMACO.

"The Katerina hotel chain is well-known to clients; we have long since had our own internal set of standards; and getting new stars is not likely to have any real impact on our chain’s image."

The managers of some of the large chains are also cautious about the new system. The manager of one Moscow hotel that is part of a well-known chain said that, if the new standards are similar to Western ones, such prominent Moscow hotels as the Rossia and Izmailovo would not get any stars at all.

"This issue requires a comprehensive approach, not just changing the classification, but also introducing different taxation for different categories of hotel," said Vladimir Ilyichev, representative of the Accor international chain, which manages hotels under the Novotel name in Russia. "In many European countries, tax rates are higher for four- or five-star hotels then for lower-category ones. This tax system would help support the tourist-class hotels, of which there are too few in Russia."

Tatyana Ivanova, marketing and PR manager for RSL, which manages the Radisson SAS Lazurnaya, said the new classification would not be of any great significance for the hotel. "Our hotel is a member of the Radisson international hotel chain," she said, " and this in itself is an indicator that it corresponds to high world standards of quality in the hotel business."

Vyacheslav Rashchupkin, deputy general director for St. Petersburg hotel Moskva, said that, though it was important to introduce new standards, the new system is not likely to change the current situation, in which a room in a three-star Russian hotel can cost up to twice what it would in Europe.

"Stars and categories don’t tell us anything at the moment about the level of a hotel," he said. "Many tourists come here for the first time, and the names are all unfamiliar to them. As far as I understand it, professionals will now be responsible for allocating classifications. I don’t think this will have any real impact on the business – more likely, it will be more convenient for the clients. Having a unified system will make things simpler for them."