(st) Hospitality is a top priority for tourism in Switzerland. On the occasion of the 15th Switzerland Vacation Day on 5 June 2012, Switzerland Tourism is joining efforts with strong partners to launch the “Most Welcoming Hotel of Switzerland” award. The purpose is to find the best hosts and motivate the entire industry to perform at its highest level.

Switzerland, a brand that stands for maximum precision and quality, is expected to deliver peak performances in every respect. And this is precisely what guests from around the globe are looking for when they visit the holiday and travel destination Switzerland, especially where hospitality is concerned. Switzerland Tourism (ST) now intends to encourage the industry to excel in terms of friendliness by recognizing the best hotels. With this in mind, ST, jointly with four industry partners, will launch the “Most Welcoming Hotel of Switzerland” award in celebration of the 15th Switzerland Vacation Day on 5 June 2012.

Based on guest ratings

The “Most Welcoming Hotel of Switzerland” award is based on guest reviews on booking and rating platforms, such as holidaycheck.com, booking.com, hrs.com or tripadvisor.com. In principle, all hotels in Switzerland, including youth hostels and bed & breakfast accommodations are automatically eligible to participate. There is only one restriction: at least 30 guest reviews are needed to qualify. It is ST’s intent to keep the requirements to a minimum to allow as many candidates as possible to participate.

Hospitality ensures an exceptional guest experience

The criteria to win, on the other hand, are more difficult to meet and the hospitality ratings must be transparent. According to ST, hospitality is the result of “soft” quality factors: warmth x passion x competence x empathy x reliability, or in other words, an exceptional guest experience that goes beyond providing paid products and services. The rating components for the category “Hospitality” were developed jointly with TrustYou, a data and technology provider for online reviews and social media (www.trustyou.com). TrustYou collects the ratings from over 100 online portals. Text input (so-called “semantic comments”) are also included in the analysis and control mechanisms are built in to prevent manipulations which could distort the outcome. Not included in the rating of “Hospitality” are “hard factors” related to the hotels, such as infrastructure, location, view, price-performance ratio, cleanliness, etc.

One award, four categories, twelve months

Prizes for “Most Welcoming Hotel of Switzerland” will be awarded in four categories: “Luxury Hotels”, “City Hotels”, “Vacation Hotels small” (maximum 40 rooms), and “Vacation Hotels large” (more than 40 rooms). Guest ratings for participating hotels will be gathered beginning on 5 June 2012, the 15th Switzerland Vacation Day, for a period of just under a year. The cutoff date is 31 March 2013. The winners will be announced on the 16th Switzerland Vacation Day on 28 May 2013 in Bern. The “Most Welcoming Hotel of Switzerland” award will be presented every year from now on. In the future, reviews will be collected for a full twelve months, starting 1 April of every year until 31 March of the following year.

Four industry partners, seven experts, one media partner

The “Most Welcoming Hotel of Switzerland” award is embraced by the entire industry and therefore ST can count on the support of strong partners: hotelleriesuisse, GastroSuisse, EHL (Ecole hôtelière de Lausanne), and the University of Bern. A high-caliber panel of experts has been established to determine the winners. It consists of seven representatives from higher education, the media, tourism associations, and the industry. It is the responsibility of this panel to confirm the finalists, i.e. the top three hotels identified by the TrustYou analysis, and verify them through testing. The winning hotels will be integrated into various ST platforms as well as national and international marketing activities of ST. To effectively communicate the award, ST has also entered into a media partnership with “Schweizer Illustrierte”/”L’Illustré”. The support provided by the media is intended to boost the motivation of the participating hotels to actively improve the quality of the hospitality they practice.

Members of the panel of experts

—    Switzerland Tourism: Jürg Schmid, Director

—    Hotelleriesuisse: Thomas Allemann, Head of Member Services and Classification

—    GastroSuisse: Dr. Bernhard Kuster, Director

—    Hotel School Lausanne: Prof. Michel Rochat, General Director

—    University of Bern/CRED: Dr. Monika Bandi, Head Tourism Research Center

—    Schweizer Illustrierte: Urs Heller, Head of Magazines, Ringier

—    Kurt Aeschbacher, Moderator and TV Host

Guest reviews with links to the rating portals via www.myswitzerland.com/hospitality