Beyond five stars

From last Sunday’s Observer newspaper:

The Shangri-La hotel and resort chain claims to have now opened its first six-star hotel, the Barr Al Jissah Resort and Spa in Muscat. The One&Only Le Touessrok in Mauritius made the same claim when it reopened after a £32m renovation in 2002, while the Burj Al Arab in Dubai has even been described in the press as a seven-star property.

But what does all this actually mean? The answer: absolutely nothing. No official rating boards in any country offer anything higher than a five-star rating and, in some countries, including France, four stars is the absolute maximum, no matter how swanky the property. And for the time being at least, no ratings boards have any intention of adding extra stars.

‘It’s yet another product of an over-zealous marketing mind,’ says Paul McManus, head of the Leading Hotels of the World, a collection of 420 of the world’s top places to stay. ‘In my opinion, hotels should forget about giving themselves another star and let their performance speak for itself.’

Given there are no official classifications that extend beyond five stars, should there be legislation to prevent such self-appointed accolades?