Categorisation of accommodation facilities

The obligation to categorise and label accommodation facilities with stars or apples (for farms with accommodation) refers to the following groups of accommodation facilities:

• hotels, motels, boarding houses and guest houses;
• camping grounds;
• holiday apartments and holiday homes;
• rooms;
• farms with accommodation and
• marinas.

Categorisation is not mandatory for inns, mountain huts, youth, holiday, work, and other homes, and youth hostels (IYHF). However, in the event that they meet the conditions for a particular type of accommodation facility that needs to be categorised, they may be categorised in this line NO.

All accommodation facilities that are to be categorised must have a plaque with a marked category in a visible place on the outside of the facility or in the guest reception area, and they also must be labelled with the suitable type and category in their price lists and other marketing and promotional materials.

E-categorisation

In order to facilitate the categorisation procedure, the web application e-categorisation is available.

The procedure begins by registering and logging in. In the event that one accommodation facility includes various accommodation types, the registration and the entire procedure needs to be carried out for each type separately (apartment, room, etc.).

The application e-categorisation is composed of three parts:

• record sheet (for general information on the accommodation facilities and the same type of accommodation units).
• categorisation sheet (to mark the elements that the accommodation units include).
• report (in which the system calculates the achieved category).

The categorisation procedure is successfully concluded once the report is saved. The successfully completed categorisation needs to be printed, signed (and sealed, if applicable), and saved at the accommodation facility.

Considering that the Rulebook defines the self-assessment procedure (1-3 stars and apples) and the assessment procedure (higher categories of stars and apples), the application has been suitably adjusted.

Log-in is enabled for the assessor by means of a special password that is not required for normal users. The system also enables the preliminary verification of the fulfilment of conditions for particular categories in the form of preliminary categorisation which may not substitute normal categorisation. Preliminary categorisation must be suitably selected during the registration procedure. Preliminary categorisation is not formal categorisation, it is only intended to assist in verifying the quality of accommodation faculties. In order to perform formal categorisation, a new registration is required and the entire procedure must be carried out once again.

The Rules on categorisation stipulate that all accommodation facilities up to three stars or apples may perform a self-assessment, but that higher-category accommodation facilities must be assessed by qualified assessors (hotel and camping ground with four or five stars, hotel with four or five stars and the mark "superior", motel, a boarding house and guest house with four stars, a holiday apartment and a holiday house with four stars, a room with four stars, a farm with accommodation with four apples).

Assessors are experts in tourism with many years of experience in tourism who are suitably qualified for assessing accommodation facilities. Each accommodation facility selects an assessor at their own discretion from the register of assessors and makes arrangements for them to assess their accommodation facility.

A special application called Accommodation facility register is available. The application is a publicly accessible list of accommodation facilities that successfully completed the e-categorisation procedure.