Forbes Travel Guide's standards and training leadership, alongside The St. Regis Atlanta, on what now separates a Five-Star property from a very good one.
Since 2020, the luxury hospitality industry has been quietly recalibrating what separates a Five-Star experience from a very good one. On 29 April 2026, Hosco brought three of the people closest to that question into a single conversation:
- Gina Taylor, Executive Vice President of Standards and Ratings, Forbes Travel Guide
- William Avitia, Vice President of Products and Services, Forbes Travel Guide
- Nicole Ruiter, Market Director of Training and Quality, The St. Regis Atlanta and The Ritz-Carlton Atlanta
Moderated by Hosco's Raksha Daryanani, the masterclass examined how Forbes Travel Guide writes its standards, how those standards translate into operational behavior, and what it takes to hold a Five-Star rating over time.
What "Verified Luxury" Means in Practice
Forbes Travel Guide has been rating hotels, restaurants, spas, and ocean cruises since 1958. River cruises join the portfolio this year. The tagline, "We verify luxury," sets the threshold.
Taylor described an evaluation process built on multi-day incognito stays. Inspectors test roughly 500 expectations across the full guest journey, from the reservation call through arrival, in-room dining, recreation, and departure. The composite score determines one of three accolades: Recommended, Four-Star, or Five-Star.
The product matters, but it is rarely what tips the balance. A beautiful building, Taylor noted, "would not fare well on our evaluation" if the warmth is not inside. The deciding variable is human.
Standards as a Framework, Not a Checklist
Forbes standards are guidelines, not prescriptions. Genuine interest looks different for a business traveler on a stopover than for the same guest returning later with family. The standard does not change; its expression must.
Ruiter described how her teams navigate that tension in practice. The standards are not subject to internal interpretation. The only person who can change them is the guest. If a guest invites first-name usage, the team adapts. Otherwise, the property holds the line. The discipline, as Taylor put it, is to never become so focused on checkpoints that you lose what the guest is actually saying.
The same flexibility shapes how evaluators apply standards globally. Inspectors are trained to read context. A recent safari resort assessment did not feature the property's finest flatware at the dawn service before a game drive. The standard was applied to the format, not lowered. The framework is consistent worldwide. How it gets applied on the ground depends on what is in front of the evaluator.
How Training Has Evolved
Avitia, who has been training luxury properties since the late 2000s, traced a clear shift in how Forbes Travel Guide partners with hotels. Early sessions were classroom-based, walking through one standard at a time. Today's deliveries layer classroom work, scenario exercises that push teams beyond the perfect-world script, shadowing, and side-by-side audits in the live operation.
The reasoning is operational. Real guests do not stay on script. The objective is agility: teams that can be pulled off course by a guest and still return to deliver an exceptional experience.
Training also adapts to the property. Verbiage shifts between a St. Regis, a W, or a 1 Hotel. Regional norms shape delivery in the Americas, the UK, the UAE, and Asia. The Forbes framework is treated as a starting point, never a substitute for the property's own brand standard. "If that is your brand standard, follow it no matter what," Avitia said.
One clarification, often misunderstood: training with Forbes Travel Guide is not a requirement for the rating. Many Star-Rated properties have never engaged with the training team. Some clients work closely with Forbes for service development without pursuing Five-Star status. Standards and training are kept independent by design.
Inside the Five-Star Journey at The St. Regis Atlanta
Ruiter offered a candid view of what reaching Five-Star demanded at The St. Regis Atlanta. The Forbes partnership began in 2016, but the decisive shift came in the last three years, when leadership buy-in became non-negotiable.
A few practices stood out:
- At one stage, Forbes Travel Guide training was delivered exclusively to the leadership team, so leaders could teach and reinforce standards across their departments.
- Every new leader is quizzed on the standards relevant to their position and certified before taking responsibility for them.
- Internal audits run four times a year, well above the cadence of external evaluations, giving leaders an unbroken read on performance.
- A weekly Forbes Council meeting tracks audit data, identifies pain points, and addresses coaching needs.
- Recognition was built into the system. Hosts scoring above 90 percent in audits receive peer and leadership recognition, including financial reward.
The mantra carried into elevator decals, internal communications, and daily briefings: every guest, every time. As Avitia framed it, a training session is a microscopic moment in a property's year. What sustains the rating is the muscle memory built across thousands of interactions in between.
One of the more strategic shifts Ruiter described was widening who owns Forbes culture inside the property. Against the backdrop of post-2020 staffing pressures, Forbes is no longer the domain of front-of-house teams alone. Engagement now reaches across the entire hotel, including purchasing and culinary, with dedicated sessions for teams that previously sat outside Forbes training. When turnover is constant, that broader buy-in is what holds the culture together as individual roles change hands.
The rating, Ruiter noted, is not the finish line. Once a property is Five-Star, the operational question becomes how it stays there. The accolade is made repeatable by the infrastructure built underneath it: the council, the certifications, the recognition program, the language threaded through daily operations.
Where Luxury Is Heading
Asked about the trends reshaping the standards, Taylor pointed to three forces. Solo travelers are on a clear uptick. Families are seeking more experiential travel. And wellness has surged, with guests expecting to leave a property feeling transformed rather than simply rested.
Forbes refreshes its standards annually through three inputs: trend analysis, prior-year evaluation data, and a Standards Advisory Committee of industry experts serving two-year terms. The committee is drawn from properties of varying scale, which keeps the framework grounded.
The framework is also extending into adjacent verticals. Custom standards now exist for private aviation, senior living communities, and other operators delivering luxury service outside the hotel rating system.
On technology and AI, Ruiter and Avitia were measured. Technology can sharpen productivity, track guest preferences, and inform decisions, but the human connection remains the irreducible core of luxury. Many guests still call the front desk after submitting a digital request. Not because the system failed, but because they want confirmation from a person.
On Building a Career in Luxury
The panel closed with concrete advice for professionals earlier in their careers:
- Ruiter: build a sharp, current understanding of what luxury means now and how it is evolving. Standards are global; they only come to life when applied from the guest's standpoint.
- Taylor: focus on the basics. Eye contact, a smile, please and thank you, grooming, professionalism. Use every service experience you have as a guest to sharpen your own bar.
- Avitia: show up. Every action and inaction creates an emotion. Your reputation is built every shift through what you choose to deliver.
The Real Test
There is no secret formula, Avitia stressed. Forbes Travel Guide publishes the standards. Properties know what will be tested. The difficulty is consistency: delivering on the busy day, the slow day, the tired day, with the difficult guest and the easy one alike.
His final piece of advice for hoteliers tempted to spot the inspector in the lobby: do not. The moment a team focuses on one suspected evaluator, it forgets the hundred other guests paying for the same personalized attention. The strongest service culture is the one that does not need to know who is watching.
Forbes Travel Guide has expanded its digital learning offering this year, with individual courses across front office, food and beverage, and housekeeping available at https://academy.forbestravelguide.com/e-commerce/learn