Hotel safety auditors launch hotel brand standard service

Cristal International Standards is a new trade arm of Check Safety First which is designed to help hotel groups provide a consistent brand experience at each site regardless of which company is operating it. 

Company chairman Steve Tate told BigHospitality the idea for the new service was a 'natural evolution' of its usual services, but had also come from seeing a growing number of guest reviews which talked about inconsistencies at branded hotels across the world. 

“What sets a group apart is the values and qualities of the brand and these need to be consistent across the globe," he said. "Guests expect a hotel to provide the same level of service as another from the same group, wherever they are in the world. 

"The idea for Cristal International Standards came from the natural evolution of our services to include quality and standards in our normal risk management portfolio. Also, once we started reviewing things like TripAdvisor it was clear that independent reviews, carried out to an objective standard, were lacking in the market.

"Once we looked at the global market we quickly realised that there isn't a business model that includes the 16 modules of quality, standards and risk that we are now covering." 

How it works​

Hotel groups opting to use the new service are given access to BrandCheck, a product which enables hotel group directors to monitor the performance of each hotel under a certain brand through a real-time dashboard report. Hotels will be evaluated by being issued with a questionnaire that complies with the brand’s key values.

Meanwhile, another product- StandardsCheck - ensures that all hotels in the group adhere to international legal and voluntary standards. Both products are supported by a toolbox of risk management modules that can be added, either by the corporate head office or as required by local hotel managers. 

Tate said all hotel groups, even boutique hotels with a clear image, would be able to take up the service and believes it could work across all brands, even those that were heavily franchised. 

"We will work closely with each hotel group to define what the essence of their brand is," he said. "Then we will write an audit that covers all the points that make up that brand. The audit will be carried out on each hotel at reasonable intervals and the percentage score will be reported to head office and to the hotel. There will also be a list of deficiencies and corrective actions that will be issued that, if carried out completely, will bring the score up to 100 per cent." 

He added: “With over 65 million monthly users on TripAdvisor, the explosion of online review sites and social networks is a significant problem for the hospitality industry. Global brands have a major problem on their hands as damaging customer feedback can threaten their reputation. Cristal International Standards can help premier hotel groups protect themselves with brand, quality and standards assurance.”