Tuesday 17 November 2020
The Committee for Economic Development has recently introduced a new independent risk assessment and accreditation scheme, 'Safe, Clean and Legal' for the Guernsey visitor accommodation sector.
Guernsey hotel, self-catering and guest house accommodation will be independently assessed by contracted partners, 'Quality in Tourism' who currently work with Marketing and Tourism to provide the assessments required for all visitor accommodation star rating grading awards.
Which? Magazine, having recently completed a review of a cross section of businesses in England, has recognised the Quality in Tourism accreditation scheme for hospitality and tourism businesses as the most robust scheme.
The scheme will be voluntary for 2020 and will be available free of charge to the visitor accommodation sector but will then form part of the mandatory boarding permit statutory requirements for 2021 and beyond.
There has been a good take up of the scheme already and the Quality in Tourism assessors will be contacting accommodation providers direct to offer assistance with the scheme, with webinars offering remote training for operators available shortly.
Deputy Simon Vermeulen, Tourism sector lead for the Committee said:
"Award of this accreditation will provide visitor accommodation providers with a quality assurance 'stamp', which can be used in all promotional materials and marketing communications to help reassure potential visitors to Guernsey that the visitor accommodation sector maintains and operates to the highest standards of cleanliness and safety.
We hope that the introduction of the scheme, which has been approved by Public Health, will be a valuable addition and resource for our industry, which will help Guernsey to revive and thrive in the wake of the Covid-19 pandemic".
Deborah Heather from QIT said:
'This is a robust and versatile risk assessment and accreditation scheme which is currently being rolled out in the UK. As the title suggests, the scheme covers a wide range of cleanliness and safety risk assessment criteria including Covid 19 cleaning and risk mitigation training'.
