You may be surprised to learn that there is no requirement for any person or company in the UK, offering hotel or guest accommodation, to have their facilities and service independently evaluated and rated. There is also no single standard for rating accommodation, but the 2 largest organisations offering accommodation recognition schemes, the AA and VisitBritiain (including VisitWales and VsiitScotland), both assess accommodation using common quality standards. This effectively means that a 3 star AA rating is equal to a 3 star VisitBritain rating. You should also be aware that any hotel, guest house or bed and breakfast can self assess their own accommodation and award themselves a star rating. You might expect this practice to be limited to small independents - but some of the larger branded chains also assess their own star rating.
Actually conveying the level of service and facilities that a hotel provides from just a star rating on a building, on a website or in promotional literature is quite frankly impossible. The star rating should only be used as a guide to the level of facilities and service available at the hotel or guest accommodation. A better means of finding an hotel that suits your needs is to read reviews provided by previous paying guests. Having first hand experience of the standard of service that an establishment offers, enables previous guests, to provide a useful insight into the quality of accommodation.
VisitBritain have a very simple guide for hotel and guest accommodation ratings, which they describe as 'Our ratings made easy'.
Although both hotels and guest accommodation use a star rating they each have different criteria by which they are assessed. A large part of what an hotel is assessed upon, and what you pay for when you stay in a hotel are the facilities, although service is obviously very important. Whereas guest accommodation will inavariably have less facilities, and therefore much greater emphasis is placed upon the quality of the service.
The heading of Guest Accommodation includes Guest Accommodation, Guest House, Bed & Breakfast, Farmhouse, Inn, Restaurant with Rooms.
The heading of Hotels includes Hotel, Country House Hotel, Small Hotel, Town House Hotel and Metro Hotel.
VisitBritain very briefly summarises the Hotel Star Ratings as:
and Guest Accommodation Star Ratings as:
The AA have slightly more informative summaries for the hotel and guest accommodation ratings on their Hotel Recognition Scheme page and Guest Accommodation Scheme page.
A detailed booklet ( The Hotel Quality Standards Brochure) produced by the AA for hoteliers interested in having their hotels rated offers a much more in-depth description of every aspect of the facilities and services that an hotel needs to provide to attain a given star rating. A similar booklet is available for guest accommodation: Guest Accommodation Quality Standards Brochure.
The vast majority of London hotels listed on this site displaying a star rating have been awarded it by either the AA or VisitBritain. You will find a small number of hotels who have self assessed. Always read hotel reviews by previous guests because they provide useful additional information to help you choose between similarly rated establishments. Each of our pages for 2, 3, 4, and 5 star hotels have additional information on what differentiates Two 2 star, Three 3 star, Four 4 star and Five 5 star hotels - London.