KPMG | WhaleTales Blog by Chris von Ulmenstein

The recent attempt by the Tourism Grading Council of South Africa to completely overhaul its grading assessment criteria, and then to withdraw most of the proposed changes due to the outcry from the accommodation industry, is the biggest PR gaffe of the body that has been tasked by South African Tourism to set accommodation quality standards. The Tourism Grading Council’s charming Chief Quality Assurance Officer Thembi Kunene admitted that an error had been made in presenting the first draft to the industry.

We wrote recently about the final decisions the Tourism Grading Council made, relative to the draft proposal, in its new accommodation grading assessment criteria. At a presentation to the Cape Town accommodation industry at the Cape Town International Convention Centre earlier this week, Ms Kunene was commendably honest in her feedback about the effect the draft proposals had, and that the potential loss of many accommodation establishments from the grading system led to a rethink, and a delay by about four months, in introducing the new assessment criteria.

The Tourism Grading Council was criticised for only setting up the meeting in Cape Town in November, the city with the largest number of graded establishments in the country, when it had done presentations in Hermanus and Franschhoek, for example, in September already. The Tourism Grading Council is clearly sensing a concern, and is doing a road show throughout the country during November, to reassure its clients. The only problem was that the meeting was set for 8h00 – 12h00, the busiest time of day for accommodation establishments – the smaller they are, the more likely it is that the owners are hands-on in their establishments in making breakfast and checking out their guests, and therefore were unable to attend the meeting. Ironically, an establishment owner said that the only reason why he was able to attend was because he had no guests in his guest house!

What is not understandable, despite the fact that Ogilvy PR handles the public relations for the Tourism Grading Council, is that no PR campaign has been launched to repair the damage caused to its image amongst its clients through the draft assessment criteria document, which was sent to all star-graded properties. No current star-graded establishment has received any communication to explain that the bulk of the proposed controversial assessment criteria have been scrapped. Assessors also seem to have been overwhelmed by the controversial process and the number of calls they had to field about the proposed changes, that they themselves have not been proactive in informing their clients about the dramatic turnaround in the new grading assessment criteria.

A sensitive issue is that the Tourism Grading Council has chosen a new formula for the calculation of its annual fees, by weighting the average room rate and number of rooms to come up with the new fee. In an example provided for a 2-star guest house in Soweto, the fee increase was shown to be 10 %, whereas it was a far larger increase for a larger higher-starred guest house. The fee increase in excess of the inflation rate attracted strong criticism amongst the attendees, when accommodation establishments have frozen their rates, some as far back as 2007 already. The fact that a breakfast was provided was raised by Ms Kunene, as if the establishment owners should have been grateful for the mediocre Convention Centre breakfast, consisting of fruit, cereals, yoghurt, rolls and cold meats, and that it should justify the fee increase! Ironically, Ms Kunene talked about her new iPad, and one wonders why such a R9000 purchase was necessary! Each attendee also received a gift on departure, unusable to most and thus a wasted expenditure. One also wonders why KPMG was contracted to handle the revision of the grading criteria assessment, and how much they were paid, for a proposal that has dented the image of the Tourism Grading Council, and with it that of SA Tourism!

We have written previously that technically very little has changed in the assessment criteria. It was interesting to hear which of the proposed assessment criteria changes attracted the largest industry criticism:

* airconditioning – an “air temperature control system” is now acceptable as an alternative to airconditioning, but must have adjustable controls, to be set for the level of comfort of the guest.

* dinner service – whilst the criteria say that such a service must be made “available”, it is meant that one must make bookings at restaurants for guests, or allow Mr Delivery access to the establishment for food delivery

* room service and hours – this only applies to hotels now

* statutory requirements – each province has different requirements for rezoning, trading etc, and therefore a full list had been supplied. Now the directive is that the applicable provincial requirements must be adhered to.

* armchairs – this had led to a debate of the exact definition of such chairs, and therefore the criterion was redefined to be a ‘seating space’ per person

* shower over bath – a glass partition must be made available for 4 and 5-star establishments

Lesser issues in terms of feedback received related to security requirements (scrapped), room dimensions (scrapped), size of TV screen and initial directive that the TV be a flatscreen one (now dropped), down pillows (scrapped), master switch next to bed (scrapped), wardrobe size (scrapped), number of basins in 5-star bathrooms (scrapped), size and placement of mirrors (scrapped), number of clothes hangers (scrapped), breakfast duration (scrapped), and private toilet in open-plan bathrooms (criterion retained).

Another issue was the application form – yes, no matter how long one has been graded, one has to register from scratch. Here a number of onerous and off-putting information requirements led to further controversy. They were justified by the Tourism Grading Council as being necessary if one wants to offer accommodation to Government officials. These information requirements have now been dropped, yet establishments have not been informed of this recent change.

Whilst the Tourism Grading Council demonstrated its willingness to listen to its customers, the graded establishments of South Africa, its image is severly dented, and it needs to regain the trust and respect of thousands of graded establishments who are considering not renewing their grading or who were inconvenienced by the drama surrounding the attempted changes to the assessment criteria.

Ms Kunene called me the morning after the presentation, to personally thank me for my contribution to the meeting during question time. She impressed with her openness and willingness to hear her customers, and requested that I assist the Tourism Grading Council in spreading the word about the fact that barely any changes have in fact been made in the new grading assessment criteria, which we have already done through our previous blog post.

Chris von Ulmenstein, Whale Cottage Portfolio: www.whalecottage.com Twitter @WhaleCottage

The accommodation industry is up in arms about the 83-page document they have been sent by the Tourism Grading Council of South Africa, asking it to comment on the proposed new assessment criteria to be used by assessors for their annual assessment from October onwards, to confirm the maintenance, upgrade or downgrading of their star allocation within a very short period of time.

Initially accommodation establishments were given only six days to comment, but the Council has extended its deadline for the feedback to 9 April due to the furore which the document has caused. It appears that assessors themselves may not be happy with all the proposed changes. The final assessment criteria will be announced at Indaba in Durban on 8 May, reports the Southern African Tourism Update.

The majority of the criteria are as before, and this should be good news to owners of accommodation establishments. However, some of the requirements are radically stringent, and as they imply costs in meeting the new criteria, they are highly contentious, especially given the poor state of the economy and the precarious financial situation that many establishments find themselves in. The reaction of many establishments in seeing the criteria is that they will withdraw from the grading system, which is the opposite to what the Tourism Grading Council would be wishing to achieve with the new criteria. Establishments in the lower star grading bands and B&B’s may be especially tempted to withdraw from the system.

The document does not state how much time establishments have to adjust to the new criteria, if they are an established business. Feedback from the National Accommodation Association (NAA) indicates that properties will be given 2 years to implement the new criteria. New establishments will obviously have to meet the new criteria from October onwards.

The new assessment criteria were compiled with input from accommodation owners, as well as research which consulting firm KPMG conducted to benchmark South Africa’s grading criteria against international standards (mainly UK, New Zealand and Australia).

The document was assessed in this post from a 4-star Guest House, B&B and Country House perspective, for which the criteria are the same, with the emphasis on Guest Houses:

1. The practicality of completing a 66 page document is questioned, meaning that the current two-hour assessment visit will double in time, given the large number of aspects to be assessed. This can only imply that the assessment fees, already around R2000 per visit, will have to increase.

2. Guest house owners/hosts must live in a separate entity if they live on the property, but may not live more than a 10-minute drive away for check-ins. Breakfast must be served every day, rooms must be serviced daily, and a guest lounge and breakfast room must be available for guests’ exclusive use. All these criteria appear fair.

3. All three accommodation types must meet “minimum entry requirements” before they can be assessed:

* public liability insurance

* the safety and security of guests, which includes lockable doors and secured windows

* the visual privacy of guests from the street

* the booking service must be available all year

* “health and safety certificate – fire and building regulations” (the exact requirement in this regard is not clear)

* must be registered as a business with the provincial authority (no such registration requirement is known in the Western Cape)

* “no lawful discrimination on the basis of race, gender, citizenship, physical and mental conditions, etc” (the word “lawful” seems a contradiction!)

* clear and visible signage (this could be contentious, as many establishments, B&B’s in particular, wish to remain low key about their existence)

* staff dealing with guests must be professional and courteous at all times

4. The marks awarded from the assessment are to change in determining the star grading, meaning more 4 and 5 star establishments potentially, as the mark requirement has dropped. This contradicts the previous tightening of the percentages, as it was felt that there were too many 4 and 5 star establishments (this should be generally acceptable to establishments) :

* 1 star 30 – 43%

* 2 star 44 – 58 %

* 3 star 58 – 74 %

* 4 star 74 – 88 % (currently is 85 – 94 %)

* 5 star 88 – 100 % (currently 95 – 100%)

5. The assessment allows for the establishments’ Universal Access to be evaluated at no extra charge, and for a bronze, silver, gold or platinum plaque to be awarded to establishments that cater for guests with disabilities. Establishments will not be penalised for not offering these facilities. The evaluation for the Universal Access takes up a large part of the space on the assessment questionnaire, making it feel longer and more onerous than it is if the Universal Access is not evaluated.

6. Some of the key requirements are the following:

* One off-street parking bay per bedroom must be offered, but can be up to 2 rooms per bay in “urban areas” (this should be what most establishments have already)

* Staff must be on 24 hour call as far as safety and security is concerned (this probably is in place in most establishments)

* Contentious could be the minimum room and bathroom sizes specified, given that the current dimensions of rooms in existing establishments cannot be altered: a 4* guest establishment must have a size of at least 30 sq. meters for the bedroom, bathroom and landing. The bedroom must have at least 9 sq meters of “free floor space”, and the bathroom 2 sq. meters of such space

* All 4* and 5* establishments must offer a safe fitting a “17 inch” laptop – this could be very contentious, given that most guest houses have built-in safes for valuables already. This could be a very costly requirement change to meet

* Each wardrobe must have a minimum of 14 clothes hangers in it (one wonders how they came to this number – surely 10 can do?)

* All 4* and 5* establishments must have airconditioning – this is the most costly requirement change, and will create resentment amongst those establishments that do not have airconditioners, especially for B&B’s, as well as for those that do, given the punitive electricity cost increases

* Each bedroom must have a “master lighting switch” at the beside, something which requires installation at building stage, so this too can cause controversy and cost

* Mirrors must measure 120 x 40 cm, and may not be on the back of the door. Most establishment mirrors are on the back of the bedroom door!

* Bathrooms may be open plan to the bedroom, but the toilet must have a lockable door. Guests must be informed about open plan bathrooms when they book.

* Towels have to be changed every day – this is very controversial, given water shortages and punitive electricity charge increases from 1 April. Bed linen must be changed every 3 days.

* A hot and a cold breakfast choice must be offered, and the breakfast time must be at least three hours (this is a fair requirement).

* A laundry service must be offered on at least 5 days a week (this is a fair requirement)

* An internet service must be offered in 3*, 4* and 5 * establishments (this is a fair requirement, given guest needs, but will add to the running costs of the business).

* The MOST controversial requirement is an 18 hour Reception service, from 6h00 – midnight, in 4* establishments. Guest house staff work an extremely long day, and given the recession, this is a most irrational and expensive requirement. Staff working until midnight without their own cars cannot get home if they do not live on the property, given the lack of public transport at that time of night!

The full document regarding the proposed Tourism Grading Council grading criteria for Country Houses, Guest Houses and B&B’s can be read here.

POSTSCRIPT 1: The deadline for comments has now been extended to 27 April, reports South African Tourism Update on 31 March.

POSTSCRIPT 2 : The accommodation establishments will be given one year to implement the new criteria, says an e-mail sent to them by the Tourism Grading Council on 31 March, and not 2 years as the NAA wrote.

Chris von Ulmenstein, Whale Cottage Portfolio: www.whalecottage.com