The national Board of Tourism launched the Hungarian Tourism Quality Award for hotels and restaurants in January 2006. The award distinguishes touristic services that have made and are making special efforts in order to improve their quality.
It is a sign of TRUST which means to tourists that the company fulfils the quality requirements of its category and even more. This award ensures that the supplier really complies with the requirements of its category with regard to the expectations of both the guests and the professionals. The operation of the qualifying system was tested with the help of volunteer hotels and restaurants in 2005 within the framework of the "pilot" programme. Our hotel took part in the tests. The programme was accredited by HOTREC – the professional organization of the EU member states’ hotel and catering associations – in 2007 which is a significant international acknowledgement. Due to this, the Hungarian Tourism Quality Award entitles the restaurants and hotels that have won it to use the sign "2Q" which certifies the compliance with the European requirements.
The Hungarian Tourism Quality Award for hotels was given to us on the 4th of March 2010 at the Travel Show in Budapest. Our hotel competed for this award in 2009 and the requirement was to fill in an overall self-estimation questionnaire/test including 750 aspects (from the Housekeeping to the Sales Department). The points critiqued on the condition and the cleanliness of the rooms, the information of the guests, the handling of the complaint, the treatment of regular guests, the measuring of the guest’s satisfaction, the knowledge of the tourism market, and the motivation and foreign language skills of the employees, etc.
After the test, the competition had to be passed to the competent with a short description of the hotel until the 28th of February 2009. Consequently, the next step was a ”mystery shopping” in which the first important part is the room reservation process. In our case, it was handled by writing and most often the knowledge of the sales team is tested through phone. Afterwards, in a sunny morning in May two women – experienced specialists from the tourism trade (both I have already known directly or indirectly) – shared their experiences regarding our hotel.
