Our Guides

Quality Grading Scheme

What is Quality in Tourism and how does it work?

Our Quality Grading Scheme is provided by Quality in Tourism, which is a regulatory body within Visit England tasked with reviewing all different types of accommodation establishment to award them with a star rating based on their quality, comfort and level of facilities available.  This star rating is a nationally recognised award so that holiday-makers can make a judgement and know what to expect when choosing a holiday cottage before they make a booking.

At Coquet Cottages, all of our cottages are graded at 4 stars up to 5 stars with the majority being awarded an additional accolade; a GOLD award for excellence.  The 4 catagories our cottages fit into are as follows:

  • 4 Stars
  • 4 Stars with a GOLD Award
  • 5 Stars
  • 5 Stars with a GOLD Award

The GOLD accolade at 4 Star level is awarded when a property is clearly of a high standard but for a technical reason, cannot reach the next star level. This could be due lack of space in one particular room, not enough bathrooms or lack of a facility such as a washing machine.

For the 5 Star Awards with a GOLD accolade, this is awarded to the best holiday accommodation throughout the UK and there is no higher award than this. The GOLD accolade is recognition that the property surpasses 5 stars alone.

In addition to 5 Stars and a prestigious Gold Award for excellence, We have a select number of exclusive properties in England to be awarded a prestigious Rose Award by VisitEngland.This highly coveted award recognises the outstanding level of customer service and attention to detail provided in our cottages.

 

 

Why do we choose to work with Quality in Tourism?

We pride ourselves on our high standard of holiday accommodation, but we recognise that for a potential guest looking to book a holiday, it is comforting to have reassurance that the holiday cottage you have booked has matched the national standard of what ever star rating it has been awarded.

By working with the tourism board, it also means that we, at Coquet Cottages, can monitor the standards of all of our holiday cottages and ensure they are always up to the high standard of the grading they have been awarded. It gives us a national standard that we know we always have to meet.

Awards

We’re very proud of the fact that we have the highest proportion of Gold Award winning cottages of any cottage agency in the UK – 70% of the cottages in our portfolio have been awarded Gold Awards. We have also been awarded a ‘Certificate of Excellence’ on Trip Advisor with over 650 ‘excellent’ reviews.
We have been awarded Living North Magazine’s ‘Accommodation of the Year’ in the North East of England for 2016-2017.

Who decides what star rating each cottage receives?

An assessor from Quality in Tourism comes once a year to each property to make a full assessment of lots of different aspects of each property; quality, facilities, space, lighting, ventilation and services in each room of each property. The scores for every section are between 1-5, then the overall score is given based on an average of all of the scores. Depending on the result, this determines the star rating awarded.

If you share our high standards and values and already own a luxury holiday cottage, you may wish to consider joining us. We would love to hear from you so please contact us by phone or email, or find out more here.

Gold Award Winning Cottages

Warkworth

The Little Red Hen House

Sleeps: 4 2 Dogs

Holidays from £396

Warkworth

Fern House

Sleeps: 8+2 2 Dogs

Holidays from £842

Alnmouth

Alnmouth Penthouse

Sleeps: 6 No Pets

Holidays from £573

view all our cottages