Every so often, you hear about a chef who loses a Michelin star and then goes nuts — in the worst case, even committing suicide. But you never hear about celebrations when a star is lost. The perpetual goal is to gain or keep stars, not shed them. But now hotels in Berlin are clamoring for a lower rating, in an effort to keep business.

Why? Because a five-star rating is causing some hotels to lose business from corporate clients who are cutting back. At least that’s the theory.

The hotels appear to believe that their business has been hurt by a recommendation that pharmaceutical companies reduce the amount of pampering given to physicians and others attending events hosted by drug companies.
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Willy Weiland, the director of the InterContinental and president of Berlin’s federation of hotels and inns, told the Berliner Morgenpost that the loss in the pharmaceutical business is no laughing matter. He estimates that 60,000 of his hotel’s 140,000 annual overnight stays derive from individuals participating in congresses such as those hosted by drug companies.

This certainly bucks the trend at the upper end of the travel industry of trying to out-luxe-ify the competition.

(Incidentally, if you’re confused as to how a hotel even could attempt to negotiate its star-rating downward, that’s a function of the German rating system. Hotels in Germany are voluntarily rated by a third-party ratings agency on a published scale. It’s an opt-in system, unlike the guidebook-generated ratings (AAA, Mobil, Frommer’s, Fodor’s, Zagat, etc., etc. etc.) in the United States. The German system is voluntary, unlike, say, the mandatory ratings systems in Belgium.)

Will the voluntary downgrade be a trend anywhere else? Do corporate travel offices really cut back on bookings based on the star rating, instead of the room rate?