Hotel Star Systems

The Burj al Arab does a good job at marketing itself as a 'Seven star' hotel. However fabulous this may sound, one begins to doubt the meaning of this designation when noting the number of stars other hotels in the city have. Maybe it's just me, but oftentimes I find myself leaving a hotel restaurant and looking at a 5-star ranking on the front plaque of the entrance. This often occurs at hotels that would never get such a rank in other countries. My good friend Wikipedia chimes in on the topic, describing the system for ranking hotels and pointing out that in some countries an official body exists with presumably independent ranking criteria.