Filenews 2 March 2021 - by Adamos Adamou
One of the points that caused a sensation with the introduction of the new regulatory framework for the operation of hotels and tourist accommodation, the introduction of the institution of secret visits for evaluation purposes, is heading for abolition before it is well put into effect.
The repeal of welfare provides for a bill tabled in the House to amend the Regulation of the Establishment and Operation of Hotels and Tourist Accommodations Act, which only entered into force in 2019. Secret visits would be made by trained people - mystery shoppers - with a purchase of services and not by officials of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. The amending bill, however, provides for the abolition of secret visits to assess the hotel and tourist accommodation services offered. The role of... evaluators will essentially take over the customers of each accommodation, through the comments they will post on various websites of the internet.
As stated in the rapporteur's report, the purpose of the bill is, inter alia, 'the repeal of subsection 6 of Article 7 of the Law, which concerns the conduct of secret visits to hotels, whereas, within the framework of the new National Tourism Strategy, it is established to provide services/tool for collecting data of online reputation, which allows continuous measurement and monitoring of the tourist experience in hotels, a solution which provides the necessary information for immediate corrective measures, with the result that the institution of secret visit to hotels, which is planned to take place once every three years, is redundant, without added value".
With the design/development of services/online reputation data collection tool (ORM– Online Reputation Management), the role of secret visits will be taken over, as mentioned, by customers, via the internet. In fact, the tool will be used by the Ministry of Tourism not only for hotels but also for leisure centres and other services. The Ministry of Tourism is expected to have this tool at its disposal in the next two months, having proceeded at the beginning of the year to the award of the relevant contract. In this way, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Tourism Cyprus will be able to make use of the new technology, in order to continuously collect data and monitor the level of satisfaction of travellers, through their reviews on online platforms.
The Bill also amends Article 7(3) of the Act, in order to clarify that the criteria for the classification of hotels are divided into mandatory and optional classification criteria, while provisions are also introduced to deal with individual cases of hotels applying - established and on sufficient grounds - for limited relaxation of the regulations, undertakings 'which otherwise exceed the conditions laid down for their classification in one under Article 4 of the Law provided for , so that the Ministry of Tourism can deal with such cases, ensuring fairness as well as continuous improvement of the hotel product with new investments".
