The Tourism Grading Council of South Africa (TGCSA) is currently reviewing its grading criteria, with new criteria expected to be unveiled in November.
Darryl Erasmus, TGCSA Chief Quality Assurance Officer, told Tourism Update that the council had begun to engage with industry associations as part of its reviewing process.
“We’ve already begun to engage with the Southern African Association for the Conference Industry (SAACI) and we’ve got some fantastic feedback from the engagements that we had with them,” said Erasmus.
Other associations the council has approached include national accommodation association, Federated Hospitality Association of Southern Africa (Fedhasa) and the Youth Travel Association. “We’re now rolling out to the broader industry to say: ‘These are what our proposals are, how do you feel about them? Should they become part of the way forward?’” added Erasmus.
He said feedback thus far included the fact that travellers were insisting on WiFi. “It actually speaks to South African Tourism as well, because at SA Tourism we’re all about enabling international, but also domestic travellers, to experience authentic South Africa and share it – and what better platform than social media to share those experiences.”
On the other hand, Erasmus said WiFi was still quite expensive in South Africa so it would have to be decided at what point in the star grading process it was made compulsory.
Other concerns that will be raised to the industry include whether boutique hotels and hotel apartments should form part of their own category, and the possible introduction of superior levels within the five-star grades. “We have product out there that is entry-level five-star product but you also have the top end. Globally, many of these grading entities around the world are taking the existing star levels and are saying you have three star, but you also have three-star deluxe or three-star superior,” Erasmus explained. He said this was something they would pitch to the industry to allow establishments to differentiate themselves, especially those that were over achieving.
In addition, Erasmus said the Tourism Analytics Programme launched at Indaba allowed them to monitor service levels of all product across South Africa, whether they were graded members or not, using online guest reviews. “We basically scrape all these online platforms, such as TripAdvisor and Expedia, we aggregate all of the scores and all of the comments and we give establishments an average of those scores,” explained Erasmus.
He said the global trend was towards accreditation in terms of quality assurance and actual assessment and then monitoring service levels using online guest reviews. “It may be that you qualify for three star but, according to the online guest reviews, you’re operating at two out of five and through the commentary we are able to drill down into the service issues.” Erasmus said they were then able to inform establishments on what specific service-related issues to correct based on the comments.
The TGCSA is also responsible for delivering the Lilizela awards together with the National Department of Tourism. “If you think about it, Lilizela is about rewarding excellence in the industry and the Grading Council’s mandate is assuring quality and service excellence,” said Erasmus.
