Deadline for comments on star grading extended
The Tourism Grading Council of South Africa (TGCSA) has given the hospitality industry another three weeks to comment on the new criteria for star-graded establishments.
Thembi Kunene, chief quality assurance officer at TGCSA says she is delighted at the response from industry to the proposed new criteria and welcomes all comment (both positive and negative) on the criteria that may be downloaded and studied on the council"s website.
Thekiso Rakolojane, TGCSA marketing and communications manager, says TGCSA invited more than 130 association bodies comprising hotel groups, Apex bodies (Fedhasa, Babasa,Satsa etc) and other tourism-related bodies representing their respective constituencies, for one-on-one workshops last week.
"In addition, we invited more than 8 000 graded establishments to provide feedback via our website where the revised criteria documents are posted. Feedback close to our April 9 deadline has been so vocal and so enthusiastic that we have extended the deadline for commentary from industry to April 27."
Kunene appealed to product owners and managers to make use of the mechanisms the grading council offers to comment on the criteria. "We appreciate and are grateful that we have received over 250 comments since last week from people and associations. However it"s important that people who wish to comment use the appropriate channel to enable us to consolidate the responses swiftly."
Comments should be sent only to the email address given on the TGCSA website.
"We remain fully committed to making consultative decisions about the new grading criteria, and to taking all comments into account."
However, she points out, time truly is of the essence. "I strongly urge all interested parties to visit the website and get their comments through to KPMG, our consultants, as soon as possible.
"The official implementation date is 1 October 2010. Thereafter establishments have 12 months to comply in order to maintain their star grading. We are fully committed to engaging extensively with industry players over all decisions we make that affect them. This applies as much to the grading criteria as it does to our other operations.
"We are happy that the industry is finally responding to this matter with such enthusiasm, and we invite those who run or own hospitality establishments to visit our website and study the new grading criteria and use the mechanisms in place to comment accordingly."
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