Eurogites quality assessment standards for rural tourism accommodations (international level)

These standards represent a common understanding of rural tourism accommodation quality as they were approved by 24 member countries of Eurogites (European Federation of Rural Tourism) at the General Assembly in 2005. The standards comprise those aspects which are present in quality schemes of all Eurogites members. The standard criteria are grouped in five clusters:

  1. Equipment
  2. Surroundings
  3. Services at the accommodation and in surroundings
  4. Intangible aspects such as personal attention, privacy, or ambience
  5. Security and safety

The clusters were defined based on the results of a international customer survey on rural tourism quality to find out the customer needs. The survey was repeated in 2009–2010 with respondents from 40 countries. Results are accessible here: quality.eurogites.org/files/Customer_survey_results_en.pdf.


To provide clear guidance to Eurogites minimum international quality assessment standards for rural tourism accommodations, this training tool was developed under the project QUALITOOL (2008–1-LV1-LEO05–00125), financially supported by the EU Leonardo da Vinci programme. The training tool consists of:

  1. Quality self-check: online application to assess the compliance of a rural tourism property with the Eurogites minimum international quality standards.
  2. Inspection manual: a pdf document explaining how to understand and assess the compliance with the standard criteria.
  3. Virtual training module: online application where the standard criteria are explained through examples with commented pictures from rural tourism properties in several countries.

The Eurogites rural tourism accommodation definition and other documents regarding rural tourism can be downloaded from the Eurogites web site www.eurogites.org/documents


The QUALITOOL products have been developed by the project partners:

  1. EuroGites, the European Federation of Farm and Village Tourism
    www.eurogites.org
  2. BAAT, Bulgarian Association for alternative tourism
    www.baatbg.org
  3. Guest Inn, Greek Network of Rural Accommodation
    www.guestinn.com
  4. RAAR - Andalusian Network of Rural Accommodation
    www.raar.es
  5. Chamber of Agriculture and Forestry of Slovenia, Agriculture and Forestry Institute Celje
    www.farmtourism.si
  6. Latvian Country Tourism Association “Lauku ceļotājs”
    www.countryholidays.lv
The action has received EC funding
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