Starry Nights

If you've ever been confused by the French hotel rating system, you're not alone. In yesterday's Telegraph, Nick Trend tells of booking three Provence hotels on a four-night trip to examine the star system firsthand. What he found? A system that's "opaque and unhelpful" with stars awarded based on requirements often "arbitrary and probably irrelevant." The bottom line: stars don't tell you much. When it comes to what should be done, however, Trend doesn't offer too many suggestions, other than point to the Britain's rating system as one that might be emulated. "After decades of a highly-confusing system," he says, "we [Britain] now have one which works relatively intuitively in the way it assigns stars to reflect the facilities on offer, but also has gold and silver awards which can be made to flag the quality of an establishment. This gives a boost to hotels which make an extra effort to make guests feel both comfortable and welcome." Read the full article here.

Photo courtesy of Getty Images via Telegraph.co.uk