The longer one searches for the ideal hotel for his/her upcoming leisurely expedition to say Cleveland, the quicker he or she realizes that the star rating system employed by the travel search engines is less than an exact science. Where as Expedia may give a particular locale 2 1/2 stars for comfort and amenities approaching but not quite the level of a three star establishment, another search engine such as Travelocity may generate a rating of 1 to 1 1/2 stars in either direction for the same place. How can this be? shouldn't the criteria employed by the experts in the field by very similar if not nearly identical across the travel search engines? Throw into this mess the variability of customer reviews, thus contributing to a labyrinth worthy of the great Theseus from ancient Greek mythology.
Prior to the advent of the information superhighway a.k.a. the internet, Mobil Travelguides, AAA, and Michelin internationally published stars for all the hotels. Nowadays every hotel travel search engine employs its own star rating system. However, that doesn't mean that they rate every hotel listed on their sites. Rather, there is a large amount of borrowing ratings from sister travel search engine sites as well as competitors. So exactly who are these "experts" that are rating the hotels for the various sites? According to a spokesperson for AAA, they employ a groups of 65 full-time evaluators, who do nothing but visit hotels periodically rating them over and over again and the same is true for all AAA sister companies and competitors. Most if not all hotel travel websites utilize customer ratings side-by-side with the star ratings. For example, if you try to book a hotel on Hotwire.com, among the top choices list will be a percentage of customers that like their stay (Recommended in 80% of Hotwire customer reviews). One can consider customer reviews even more variable than the customer ratings. This is attributed to the myriad of personalities that review a particular hotel experience. Some people may be enamored by factors outside of the hotel such as being next to the ocean or in a great downtown location of a major metropolis. In addition, who know what kind of day the reviewer had and how that is affecting his or her review. I always check the customer review side by side with the ratings on the travel websites but I do keep in mind that what makes me think something is nice or special may be another person's absolute disgust.
In my opinion the best way to determine the optimal hotel is to determine what it is you are looking for in a trip. If you are looking to spend a lot of time outside of the hotel than I would choose a lower rated hotel with a good location then a higher rated one out in the boonies. If you will not be venturing out so much than the higher the amenities, and thus a higher rating, the better. Value 3 star hotels in a good location are typically my Mecca and Medina as they provide relative comfort and amenities at a good price as well as providing minimal travel time to various destinations. I find this to typically be better than 4 stars as they tend to find ways to insert additional fees into the stay such as parking and resort ones.
