Spanish hotels maintain high standards of quality
The Spanish hotel industry is resisting the economic difficulties and the growing complexity of the tourism market by maintaining a high general level of quality, according to the Hotels Quality Index. In fact, according to this quarterly report, the establishments in our country achieve an average rating of 8 out of 10 points.
Hotels Quality Index measures from five criteria the perceived quality of Spanish hotels based on the opinions of their customers: a score above 8 is considered competitive and above 9 is of excellence.
According to this study, Spanish hotels have maintained high levels of quality since they reached, in the third quarter of 2012, a rating equivalent to the perceived competitiveness range (from 8 points out of a possible 10), and have remained at this level for six quarters in a row.
This report, prepared by Hotels Quality and Nebrija Business School, in collaboration with ITH y the Federación Española de Hostelería (FEHR), a five key factors to elaborate the íThe quality index, four of perceived experience (Service, Facilities, Cleanliness, Quality-Price Ratio), which respond to universally accepted scales, and one factor of reputation (Hotel Recommendation). All these criteria are measured through indicators calculated on the basis of the customers' evaluation in the surveys.
The variable that obtains the best score is Hotel Recommendation (overall assessment of the experience and the intention to communicate it positively), which achieves a score of 9.4 this quarter.
The Cleanliness and the Customer Service are the next best rated criteria by customers in the último quarter of 2013, with a score that rises compared to the third quarter and reaches 8.3 points in both cases.
Next is the perceived quality of the Facilities, which drops slightly to 7.2 points; and finally the Quality-Price ratio, which improves slightly to reach 6.9 points;6.9 points, reflecting the effort being made by the hotel sector in rate management, collected in the most recent Observatorio de la Industria Hotelera Española de CEHAT y PWC (OHE) for the 2013-2014 winter season.
Priority Markets
Hotels Quality Index also analyzes the perceived quality indexes of the hotel offer according to the category, type and nationality of the clients surveyed. According to the data from this study, American and Russian clients are the ones who best evaluate the quality of Spanish hotels, with ratings that reach a competitive level.
On the other hand, five-star hotels achieve ratings at the level of excellence in all indicators. In addition, three factors stand out: the balance in the levels of perceived quality for all criteria in each of the categories evaluated; the high levels of recommendation and cleanliness in all categories; and the quality-price ratio, high in five-, three- and four-star hotels (in that order), which reaffirms the good image enjoyed by the mid-range hotel offer with respect to other markets similar to Spain.
Finally, in the analysis by typology of the fourth quarter of the Hotels Quality Index, holiday hotels outperform urban hotels in all indicators, although the latter have a higher recommendation index.