Spa hotel stars and classification

The more stars, the higher the service standard a hotel guarantees. One-star hotels fulfil a minimum standard (a private bathroom in the room, regular cleaning), five-star hotels go as far as a 24-hour concierge, multilingual staff and individually run gastronomy at top level. Stars are a promise about the service and equipment of the house — not about the wellness area in the narrower sense.

The Hotelstars Union is a cooperation of European hotel associations founded in 2010 — Germany (DEHOGA), Austria, Switzerland, the Netherlands, Sweden, Hungary, the Czech Republic and others — with the aim of creating a uniform standard of classification in Europe. In Germany the DEHOGA (German Hotel and Restaurant Association) organises the classification. Hotels apply voluntarily, pay a fee, are visited by inspectors and recertified every three years. Without an active classification a hotel may not display the stars publicly — which is why some houses deliberately carry no stars and position themselves differently (boutique, “townhouse”, “resort”).

The DEHOGA catalogue of criteria comprises more than 270 individual criteria in six areas: (1) general hotel information and reception services, (2) rooms and bathroom, (3) gastronomy, (4) event and leisure offering, (5) online activities and quality management, (6) service quality. Every criterion is weighted; at each star level a hotel must reach both minimum (“M”) and optional points. Wellness offerings are recorded in the leisure area — they are thus part of the assessment, but not its centre.

A hotel with the addition “superior” has reached considerably more points in its star category than the level requires — but stays below the next level up. “Four-star superior” lies between four and five stars; the hotel offers measurably more than the four-star standard demands without making the five-star jump (often because certain criteria — a 24-hour concierge or a full-service restaurant, for instance — are deliberately not offered). In the wellness field “four-star superior” is a very common category — many owner-run top houses stay here instead of entering the service corset of five stars.

Five stars means as standard: a 24-hour reception with multilingual staff, an individual welcome, concierge service, a personally staffed bar service, an à-la-carte restaurant at an upmarket level, distinctly above-average room and suite categories, complete service coverage across the whole day. In the wellness segment these standards are typically complemented by a generous spa world with its own staff, multi-course spa cuisine, an extensive treatment offering and often a connection to renowned cosmetic or therapy lines. Houses in this class: Quellenhof (South Tyrol), Hubertus (Allgäu), Krallerhof (Salzburg), Preidlhof (Naturns).

Four-star houses — and especially four-star superior — are often owner-run and family-shaped; they bring a mixture of personal warmth and full spa substance that does not always arise in standardised five-star houses. For many wellness guests that is exactly the right level: an independent kitchen philosophy, spa concepts that have grown over time, shorter service routes. Houses of this class from our selection: Landromantik Hotel Oswald (4★ superior, Relais & Châteaux, Bavarian Forest), Mooshof (4★ superior, Bodenmais), Wellnesshotel Sonnengut (4★, Bad Birnbach).