[Willowfield]

Dear Colleague

You will have received an email from Jeremy Brinkworth of VisitEngland informing you of the changes to the service offered by Quality in Tourism and explaining that their focus will be limited to the maintaining of Quality Standards.

This email stated that...“We have also revised the benefits which participants in the quality scheme enjoy, making these much more business-oriented, rather than marketing/listing benefits which are often better delivered .... by the private sector. ...... We have therefore withdrawn the benefit which offered your business a free listing on the www.enjoyengland.com and www.visitbritain.com websites with effect from April 1, 2012. Instead, VisitEngland will be concentrating its resources on ensuring that the national website carries more engaging imagery and inspiring ideas to encourage and direct web traffic to the destination or local partner website for more detailed information on the local area.”

Anyone else recieved one of these? It was sent by vbsales@hhgroup.co.uk and went on to explain there will be afollow up e-mail to discuss.
I assume this means that we will no wbe asked to pay extra for a new entry in Ve /Vb site ? obviously without a reduction for teh quality assessment??

[joyce_taylor]

It does say that a new website is going to be launched with a method of checking if a property is VB quality assessed but it will be run be one of their partners.It didn`t say if this was to be a free service or not but the local partner that the site will transfer our potential guests onto in our region is most definitely NOT free and charges by the number of beds wether you charge £20 or £100 per bedso the only businesses that can afford to advertise on it are the high end hotels there is hardly any normal or budget accommodation on it. People from the rest of the country and indeed the rest of the world must think that there is no value for money beds in Northumberland because nowhere does it say this is only the people who make enough profit per bed to advertise with us. The site looks like a tourist board site (and it was before the cuts and everyone who was VB or AA listed was on there.)

[Sue: White Horse Walking Holidays]

Yes, I had that and since then a couple from 'Peter Diggles' with offers to buy online and guidebooks ads. I;m not very happy about this. I never considered the Enjoy England ad as being free, I thought it must be built into the high price of membership. We're over a barrel here - I'm a member of Visit Wiltshire but have to be in Visit Britain first. I have an award from the Green Tourism Business Scheme - I have to be a member of VB before I can apply for that. Each of these schemes costs money. Admittedly I've only had a couple of bookings through Enjoy England, as far as I know, but even so, I feel the ad should be included in the cost of membership.
A nearby B&B to me is always busy and doesn't belong to any of these organisations. Makes you wonder if it's worth all the expense.

[Windy]

I agree that these is most unsatisfactory.

[greenbarncottages]

There has been much correspondence on the number of self catering providers fraudulently claiming a rating they don't possess, and indeed on recommended independent listing sites doing the same thing. The only way to check that a rating is genuine is by reference to the VE website which lists ALL accommodation which has been assessed. The means of proving the veracity of a star rating claim is an integral part of having that rating and displaying it proudly on advertising material, along with a link to verify the claim; it is an essential part of the service for which we pay.

The other purpose served by a presence on the VE website is to inspire a high degree of confidence that the property being considered by a potential guest actually exists; with the increase in the fraudulent letting of non-existent properties making the news regularly, it is incumbent upon VE to provide that confidence as an essential part of their efforts to encourage UK tourism.

For those of us who are providers of high quality self catering accommodation, the star rating is the only benefit from membership of VE. It's unthinkable that VE would no longer provide verification of ALL rated properties as a part of the membership and assessment fee; to make it a paid for option renders the whole thing a complete nonsense - all the site would show would be those few rated properties where the owner had elected to pay (Q: Why is your property not shown on the VE/QIT/Whatever website when you claim it has been assessed? A: Ah, well, I didn't feel like coughing up for it. Or it doesn't really have a rating. Or it doesn't even exist. You choose; whatever the reason it's not there.) If a rating can't be verified as genuine, it's pretty much worthless, and rather than pay a membership/assessment fee then a separate verification fee on top, the simpler and far more cost-effective option is to drop out of the scheme but continue to claim whatever rating you fancy. It's pretty much guaranteed you'll get away with it, as can be seen from reading other threads. The more honest amongst us will simply decide that as anyone can claim a rating and it can't be verified, we'll simply drop out of the scheme and go it alone, or check to see if the AA provide verification with their scheme.

I really don't believe that VE would simply dump us, and I'm sure that whatever replaces the current verification listing will be free (even if only a basic listing of property, rating and contact details). Apart from anything else, I believe VE are obliged to provide a "free" website listing of an assessed property as part of the Contract we have with them.

I look forward to continuing to be a part of the VE rating scheme, and for the public to be able to to verify who is and isn't a part of that scheme.

[_grockles]

Has any noe been asked about the 20 12% offer? I googled it and can only get the offical site where you place your offer. The only olympic accommodation that comes up fisrt is in London and the VB link is quite small on the 2012 web page. Is any one out side of London donig this 2012% offer?

[jonathanward]

[QUOTE=Willowfield;5241]Dear Colleague

You will have received an email from Jeremy Brinkworth of VisitEngland informing you of the changes to the service offered by Quality in Tourism and explaining that their focus will be limited to the maintaining of Quality Standards.

We received one and we certainly had not received the e-mail from Jeremy (whoever he is) Brinkworth. I am extremely annoyed by this change without consultation - I don't suppose the QIT assessment charges will be lowered. We manage our own booking and I don't want o pay a third party to do it as we advertise on commercial sites separately. The suggestion that we should also get advertising in printed booklets is a farce, we made the mistakes of doing that last year, through our local tourism group and haven't seen a copy or had a single booking.

It would be nice to have a simple explanation of what is going to happen without the glossy marketing rubbish.

Jonathan

[Andrew Clay]

I think that if there is no on-line verification of the assessment stars claimed, then there really is no sensible alternative than to join the AA scheme - slightly more expensive but you do get listed on the AA website which means that people know that your stars are genuine and obviously cheaper than paying for assessment then paying for verification separately.
I wonder how long we'll have to wait before we know what is happening as I need to decide whether to renew or not

[Windy]

What Greenbarn said.

What can VE be thinking of?

I can't think of a better way of persuading people that membership of the VE star rating scheme is past its sell-by date - Oh - apart from making full size freezers obligatory for a four star rating in properties that deal predominantly in 3-4 day breaks that is. I wonder whose brain wave that one was? Still I suppose we no longer have to have toast racks :-)

[BandB]

We are certainly very annoyed at this new development. It appears to be we will be paying more money for no improved service.
They do have us 'over a barrel' as previously said by someone.
Those of us who are beginning to see not much benefit at all of being graded will choose to drop out.
We need to be told what the prices are going to be when we are 'invited to advertise' to pay more money on top of our membership fees now before we renew.
It's already an expensive system where we have to pay twice by signing up for QIT and having to pay again to our local tourism bodies.