Cambodia delivers online hotel stars

PHNOM PENH Cambodia has launched an online system for hotels to apply for a star rating.

Phnom Penh Post quoted Ministry of Tourism’s Tourism Industry Department deputy director, Sam Seng, saying the internet-based hotel-rating application platform would be a vast  improvement on the paper-based system it replaced.

However, to gain a rating hotels are still subject to interviews and site inspections.

The application form involves questions on a hotel’s location, architecture, room capacity, food and beverage services, facilities and parking availability.

Upon review and site inspections by Ministry of Tourism officials, the hotel is assigned a star rating starting with one star, for basic lodging, through to a maximum of five stars, for luxury accommodation.

“The new system will speed up our work when rating hotels,” he said.

A 2015 study by Bonna Realty Group identified 317 hotels with 15,000 rooms in Phnom Penh, and 417 hotels with 17,000 rooms in Siem Reap. The report also revealed that there are 133 hotels with 4,000 rooms in Sihanoukville, while Battambang province has 45 hotels with 1,600 rooms.

Last year, the tourism ministry launched a new online system to complete the legal registration of tourism-related businesses and tour guides. The online registration is expected to speed up the process for companies and guides to secure a licence.

The goal is to reduce paperwork to enable the private sector to operate efficiently in tourism.

For the first half of the year, Cambodia attracted 2.36 million international tourists increasing 2.6% from 2.30 million during the same period last year.