Accommodation ratings

All the national assessing bodies (VisitBritain*, VisitScotland, Visit Wales and the AA) now assess hotels and guest accommodation (including B&Bs) to the same criteria and award one to five stars. The star ratings reflect the overall quality of the experience.

The following descriptions of what to expect apply to all types of accommodation. Use them as a general guide to what you can expect.

1 star: Simple, practical, no frills.
2 star: Well presented and well run.
3 star: Good level of quality and comfort.
4 star: Excellent standard throughout.
5 star: Exceptional with a degree of luxury.

The Enjoy England professional assessors visit every year, carrying out a routine day visit or an overnight stay in the case of serviced accommodation. On these occasions, they book in as you would, as a normal guest and test all the facilities and services. A quality score is awarded for every aspect of the experience including the comfort of the bed, the quality of the breakfast and dinner and, most importantly, the cleanliness. They also score the warmth of welcome.

Places that 'go the extra mile' to make your stay a special one, will be awarded a high star rating and hotels and guest accommodation may achieve a Gold or Silver award.

For self-catering accommodation, the layout and design of the accommodation and the range and quality of the kitchen equipment is assessed, as well as the quality and comfort of the bedrooms and bathrooms and most importantly, the cleanliness.

Higher star-rated accommodation tends to have more spacious bedrooms and bathrooms, and in hotels certain additional facilities and services are required at the higher star levels as well as a higher staff to guest ratio, so service should be very attentive. At five star, you can really expect to be pampered in luxurious surroundings!

For serviced accommodation, there are two separate schemes – one for hotels and one for guest accommodation.

For more information on the assessment schemes and the star ratings, visit the Enjoy England website

For Enjoy England ratings:

Quality in Tourism

Farncombe House,

Broadway,

Worcestershire

WR12 7LJ

feedback@visitbritain.org

For AA ratings:

The AA

15th Floor Fanum House

Basing View

Basingstoke

RG21 4EA

customer.services@theAA.com

*VisitBritain is the national tourism agency, marketing Britain worldwide and England in Britain, France, Germany, Ireland and the Netherlands. Quality is a major element of VisitBritain’s strategy to improve tourism products and services and the standard of welcome visitors receive. VisitBritain assesses more than 23,000 accommodation businesses across nine different Enjoy England schemes. These assessments are provided by Quality in Tourism on VisitBritain’s behalf.