Online reviews from tourists suggest that the standard of hotels in Malta’s tourist hotspots varies wildly – with many reviewers questioning whether some hotels are worthy of the number of stars they have been awarded.

A significant number of reviewers on Trip Advisor – the world’s largest travel review website – have been scathing about certain hotels in Sliema, St Julian’s and Buġibba.

In Sliema/Gżira, the four-star credentials of three hotels are repeatedly called into question.

Out of 23 reviews of onecentral Sliema four-star hotel written since August 1, 14 are severely critical and eight specificallyquestioned its four-star status – despite Trip Advisor not having a function purposely designed for reviewers to question the ratings of hotels.

“This hotel is like Fawlty Towers... it is listed as a four-star but more like a one- to two-star,” a British reviewer wrote of the hotel.

At another four-star establishment on The Strand, 16 reviewers out of 32 since August 1 specifically questioned its four-star status, while four out of 16 did the same at a four-star hotel on Tower Road.

“It’s tatty, tired, old-fashioned and in the UK (it) would class as two-star at best,” a British reviewer wrote about the hotel on The Strand.

The Sunday Times visited this hotel and found, among other things, tired, dated furnishings, a miniscule ‘fitness room’ with a hotchpotch selection of ageing equipment, and a dirty, smelly, empty ‘jacuzzi’.

Over in Buġibba, the four-star credentials of one establishment have already been questioned by 11 reviewers this year, with a critic from London writing: “I would love to know how they manage to be a four-star hotel cause (sic) it does not qualify on any scale I have seen around the world.”

And it’s not just four-star hotels that are being questioned. A hotel in St Julian’s which bills itself as ‘the three-star hotel that thinks it’s a four-star’ – is pilloried on Trip Advisor, with 36 out of 88 reviewers rating it as ‘terrible’.

It should be advertised as “the Italian youth hostel that thinks it’s a bad B&B,” according to a reviewer from Manchester.

On the other hand, many other hotels in these areas including the majority of five-star hotels are rated favourably by reviewers.

Hotel star ratings in Malta are currently awarded in accordance with national legislation which mainly addresses the provision of facilities and services, as well as design guidelines.

The Malta Tourism Authority’s (MTA) enforcement unit issupposed to ensure hotel inspections are performed at least once annually, and checking for conformity with the establishment’s star rating is one of the tasksundertaken.

More regular inspections are held at hotels that have been lax in observing certain standards, an MTA spokesman told The Sunday Times.

No common star-rating standards exist across Europe at present, although efforts are being made at a pan-European levelto harmonise hotel classification criteria.

The MTA spokesman said Malta was currently evaluating the impact of such standardisation upon the local industry.

The MTA is also discussing a revised set of regulations aimed at introducing qualitative criteria for tangible features of hotels, such as public amenities and furnishings.

pcooke@timesofmalta.com