Many of Berlin’s luxury hotels have handed back their classification stars recently (as reported in Die Welt). Escapio corned Willy Weiland to find out the reasons for such decisions, to make sense of the star classification system and the future of hotels.Weiland is InterContinental Hotel Berlin’s General Manager and Vice President of Operations, Germany. N top of that, he is the President of both the Hotel- und Gaststättenverbandes Berlin e.V. and DEHOGA.

1) Why did you decide to shed InterContinental Berlin’s 5 stars?

The Pharma-Kodex states that pharmacy industry research and informative events cannot take place in luxury – meaning five star – hotels. InterContinental Berlin’s prime market is business and congress travellers, and as such we have marketed ourselves. We do not want to lose out on business just because of a classification, and InterContinental’s international brand image of quality and competence is of much more significance than a classification.

2) Other InterContinental hotels have kept their stars. Is this down to the make up of Berlin?

The only German hotels to have kept their Dehoga classifications are Berchtesgaden und Düsseldorf. Berchtesgaden is a resort hotel with an outstanding spa – and would be an unlikely choice for a pharmacy congress. Fundamentally, InterContinental caters to the business segment but Düsseldorf remains an exception. There is a huge demand for fairs and congresses to take place in Berlin due to its current positive image.

3) Do you believe companies will continue to book your hotel even without its stars? Do you trust the classification system in general?

Companies are holding back at present due to the crisis, and this is most damaging for the 5 star luxury hotels. I do believe in the classification system, especially for hotels not globally renowned – it orientates guests.

4) What alternatives are there to the star system?

The present system is definitely the best way of allowing an objective evaluation, and has an appropriate comprehension of the market.

5) A study recently suggested that luxury hotels are dramatically losing bookings, enabling budget hotels to profit from the crisis. Can you cnfirm this?

The booking behaviour of the guest has changed. We have seen this in our hotel. Customers book more last minute, opt for shorter stays or even don’t stay overnight at all. This resonates throughout the whole hotel industry, in all star classes. Hostels and budget hotels profit from the price driven booking mentality courted by tourists especially. The 5 star segment has seen a 17% drop in bookings on last year, the 3 and 4 stars only 12%.

6) What do you make of the current climate of the hotel industry? Who will survive the crisis, who wont?

For many years Berlin has been living in a kind of recession, if you compare the value-for-money here with other European cities. We are crisis prone to some extent and our confidence and optimism will hopefully help us to survive.

7) What must hotels nowadays do to attract potential guests and convince them to book? Or to put it another way, what do you think the customer values most when choosing a hotel?
Quality and service will always preside and play a most important role even now. We cannot and will not cut back on these elements.

8) What part do the internet and booking platforms play for you?

The internet plays a huge part in making prices and representation transparent. An internet site is an online business card. Online bookings continue to rise steadily and make up way over 50% of our total reservations.

9) What are the most important things to you personally when you take a holiday?

I am permanently away on business and stay in our hotels all over Europe, so I need something more relaxed and legere for my own holidays. I love going to Sylt with my family.

10) Do you have a personal favourite hotel?

There are so many fabulous hotels, I could never choose.