TGCSA to unveil new grading criteria

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 TNW that the
council had begun to engage with
industry associations as part of its
reviewing process.
Associations the council has
approached include the Southern
African Association for the Conference
Industry (SAACI), the Federated
Hospitality Association of Southern
Africa (Fedhasa) and the Youth Travel
Association.
Darryl 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, Darryl 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
with 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.
In addition, Darryl 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.”
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.”