The French government decided to create a new label to distinguish palaces among other 5* hotels. To receive this label they must have some criteria, called “excellence criteria”, that are likely to attract international high level guests. Candidates are submitted to this list of objective criteria, that will enable them to receive this label for 5 years.
Criteria
France decided to go from 4* luxe to 5* rating, in order to standardize with the rest of the world. It was supposed to attract more international guests, by making the lecture easier : Some foreign people could have not understood the 4* luxury denomination, when looking for a 5* one. This new label will be a purely French standard; will it be understood by foreigners? To them a Palace is a very subjective thing : French palaces where awarded this name because everyone acknowledged the quality they offer was simply “WOW”. It is really worth to create a new purely French award? Isn’t it a step back?
All the criteria are about the quality of facilities and the diversity of the services proposed, but very few are about the quality of service.
I believe that most of the mandatory criteria are obvious for a 5* hotel and more, many criteria are not mandatory:
- The conciergerie service is optional,
- You have to answer the phone before the 5th ring, while most hotel require before the 3rd ring,
- Most of the food and beverage services are not mandatory; can you imagine a Palace without a Gourmet restaurant, one of the French specialties?
- The possibility to book a room 24/24h is not mandatory, while nowadays with the internet, it would be simply crazy not to be able to do so
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Unfortunately, those which could really distinguish a Palace from another 5* hotel are only “ à la carte”, that is to say that they are only optional, such as
- Being trained to welcome disabled guests, and have a wheelchair at their disposal
- People speaking 3 languages, among them English
This kind of criteria could show that you are ready to welcome any kind of guest, wherever they come from.
Regarding Sustainable development, 3 criteria are mandatory, but to me it seem really not enough : the hotel is supposed to increase awareness of its employees about saving water, energy and produce less waste. But it does not mean that the hotel has to implement real actions to be responsible toward the environment. Hospitality is a very polluting industry, and being a palace should also include that you are responsible for your planet.
I believe that the “criteria of excellence” are not the ones listed for this label. The facilities criteria are already listed in the 5* hotel rating, why listing them again, and not going further in the service requirement? If every 5* hotel can have this label, what is the point of creating it ?
To me the name Palace is a very romantic word of recognition that is awarded by guests, because they experience a WOW service. I don’t think a ministry is really a good judge to design which hotel must be a palace, because all the criteria are purely French, and the word Palace is an international recognition, the criteria are coming from everywhere in the world and are satisfied, so let’s let the guests judge of who can be a palace of not.
