Varta guide

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The Varta Guide is an independent hotel and restaurant guide for Germany that has been published since 1957 . It is published annually in October by MairDumont ; the 2013 edition comprises around 1500 pages with reviews of 4682 hotels and 2323 restaurants. Of these, 25 hotels and 12 restaurants received the highest rating; compared to the 2012 edition, 437 establishments were added and 872 establishments deleted.

rating

The Varta-Führer is published by the editorial office of the Varta-Führer in Ostfildern . The Varta guide is not exclusively concerned with top gastronomy and hotels. According to its own statements, it sees itself as a useful reference work for hotels and restaurants and supports cost savings through precise information in both business and private areas.

The auditors are permanently employed chefs and hotel managers with professional experience in leading positions in the upscale gastronomy and hotel industry. The tests are carried out anonymously by several testers in the respective companies. In exceptional cases, the test is carried out with additional testers, and in cases of doubt, such as an existing disagreement among the testers, a new test takes place. Reasons for a review of obtained test results by other examiners are, for example, devaluations of previously highly rated companies, or not completely unequivocal judgments in top companies in the hospitality industry. The editorial staff can omit a devaluation and no longer include the company in question in the guide. This can happen if a derogatory judgment would affect houses that are closely connected to the tested company and are well rated.

The selection of the companies to be audited is now made by the editorial staff , which is based on previous issues and publications in daily newspapers and the specialist press. Notes from the readership are also taken into account. Hotels and restaurants can apply for inclusion in the Varta guide, but have no further influence on inclusion in the guide or the rating.

In contrast to the first edition of the Varta Guide from 1957, in which only advertisements for Varta were published, advertisements from other companies have long appeared in the printed edition. Banner advertising is offered for the Internet edition . The publisher also makes it clear to advertisers: “The editorial content of a work, including editorial reviews, is independent of the advertisements placed”.

Icon scale

In the Varta guide, “selected hotels and restaurants” are divided into five quality classes using a symbol scale from one to five “diamonds”.

The original Varta symbolism used a gable motif:

  • five gables: luxury hotel
  • four gables: hotel with great comfort
  • three gables: hotel with medium comfort
  • two gables: hotel or guest house with home-style cuisine
  • a gable: hotel or guest house with a small kitchen

In the meantime, the rating symbols and the number of categories have been repeatedly changed, so at the turn of the millennium there was a maximum of three crowns for hotels and three chef's hats for restaurants. In 2007 the symbol scale was redefined for the last time. The hotels and restaurants in Germany have since been rated with 1 to 5 diamonds. In addition, the so-called Varta tip is awarded for exceptional achievements in the categories of kitchen, service and ambience.

  • five Varta diamonds: luxurious flair, first-class service and exceptional kitchen performance
  • four Varta diamonds: high quality and creative dishes, exquisite wine selection, elaborate restaurant equipment
  • three Varta diamonds: stylish table culture, high-quality ambience and an excellent range of food and drinks
  • two Varta diamonds: very good cuisine, friendly service, well-kept setting
  • a Varta diamond: above-average offer, friendly atmosphere

history

The first edition of the Varta guide appeared in October 1957 in Mairs Geographisches Verlag , the first editions still with the note "on behalf of the Varta Accumulatoren-Fabrik, Frankfurt". At the time, the hotel and restaurant guide was without a competitor in Germany; it wasn't until 1964 that the first Michelin Guide for Germany appeared in more than 50 years. The gap in the market was caused by the fact that the publication of such a work was viewed by the publishers as too costly and too risky.

Following the example of the Michelin Guide , the advertising management of the Frankfurt Accumulators Factory wanted to publish a hotel and restaurant guide as an advertising measure. She estimated that readers would accept the advertising associated with the title of the guide in favor of a reliable reference work at a reasonable price.

The first edition from 1957 evaluated 11,600 hotels and 1,400 restaurants in 3,850 alphabetically listed locations. In the early 1960s, the Varta guide only employed one traveling hotel auditor, and the reports were based to a considerable extent on the impressions of 125 employees of the Quandt Group , to which Varta AG belonged, from business trips . The employees involved received employee bonuses of up to 500 D-Marks annually for their reports .

In the following years professional testers were increasingly employed, whose test reports now form the basis of the work. The Varta-Führer has had an internet presence since 1996; the 56th edition of the Varta-Führer, published in autumn 2012 for the Frankfurt Book Fair , appeared in a revised design and for the first time also as an e-book.

Sample process for hotel guides

In 1973 Peter Schoenthal and Karl-Heinz Schaefer, at the time the owners of the Wiesbaden hotel “Schwarzer Bock” , sued the publisher of the “Varta Guide”. In the test case , the Frankfurt Higher Regional Court rejected Schoenthal's appeal against the 1974 decision of the Wiesbaden Regional Court. The reason for the legal dispute was a downgrading from a “luxury hotel” to a “hotel with great comfort” in the 1973/74 edition of the Varta Guide.

The plaintiff questioned the objectivity of the evaluation of around 14,000 hotels and restaurants and complained about a violation of his personal rights . The Frankfurt Higher Regional Court countered the plaintiff in its reasoning for the rejection of the appeal, stating that whoever entered a public performance competition had to put up with the public assessment of his performance. Varta could neither be forced to retrospectively certify luxury, nor to delete the “black goat” from the list of Wiesbaden hotels. The inspectors do not have to justify their classification.

Web links

Varta guide, website

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b The Varta Guide 2013 appears in a new guise and for the first time also as an e-book .  ( Page no longer available , search in web archives )  Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. Varta-Führer GmbH; Retrieved August 28, 2013.@1@ 2Template: Dead Link / www.varta-guide.de  
  2. ↑ a b About us . ( Memento of the original from August 7, 2013 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. Varta-Führer GmbH; Retrieved August 28, 2013. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.varta-guide.de
  3. ↑ One more hat . In: Spiegel Special Gaumenkitzel , No. 11, 1997, p. 14; Retrieved August 28, 2013.
  4. ^ Rudolf Walter Leonhardt : Better packaging - the Varta 25 years ago and today . In: Die Zeit , No. 18/1992, p. 78.
  5. ↑ Terms and Conditions . ( Memento of the original from September 8, 2013 in the Internet Archive ; PDF 51 kB) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. VARTA-Führer GmbH, Media Department; Retrieved August 28, 2013. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.varta-guide.de
  6. ↑ without author: stars, hats, hoods. In: Zeit Online , January 21, 1999 Online , accessed August 28, 2013.
  7. ↑ a b With pointed hats. Hotel guide . In: Der Spiegel . No. 51 , 1957, pp. 62 ( online ).
  8. ↑ a b Memorable Meals . In: Der Spiegel . No. 19 , 1964, pp. 66-70 ( online ).
  9. ↑ The inspector comes. Hotel guide . In: Der Spiegel . No. 33 , 1973, pp. 48-49 ( online ).
  10. ↑ Rudolf Walter Leonhardt : Who knows exactly what luxury is? In: Die Zeit , No. 15/1974, p. 53