Hotel Classification in Myanmar

The Ministry of Hotel and Tourism in Myanmar is planning to classify hotels in the country. The classification of hotels in Yangon will be firstly discussed, while an expansion towards other tourism destinations is not excluded.

The difficulty lies in the developing of a classification system. Often quality management is mistaken for the rating, while the quality management stands for daily working procedures within the hotels which are implemented to satisfy the customers’ needs and expectations. In a classification are normally the facilities and basics of the property tested. But we have of course to acknowledge that a classification based only on the above mentioned will result sooner or later as well in an improvement of the quality management.

It will have a positive effect that the Ministry of Hotel and Tourism is considering to include next to the facilities the services, number of rooms and even the atmosphere of each hotel. This will help well established hotels to proof their value and unknown hotels with good facilities and services to improve their marketing awareness. On the other hand it will hopefully urge hotels which are missing out on certain standards to improve. The Ministry of Hotel and Tourism should after the completion of their classification publicly announce the rating for each hotel and hand out certificates and an honor badge to underline the process.

Besides the regular inspections the Ministry handed out questionnaires to the hotel managers, asking for details like room size, etc. to gather more information. It is good that the Myanmar Hotel Association as well as the Union of Myanmar Travel Association work close together with the Ministry in the implementation of this hotel classification.