January 13, 2015. Sverdlovsk Region hotels will keep getting star categories throughout 2015. The eleven cities that will be hosting the World Cup 2018 games must get all of their hotels starred by July 1, 2016. The requirement applies to all hotels regardless of whether they are planning to offer rooms to the football championship visitors, Sverdlovsk Region Government’s Information Policy Department reports.

Russian Restaurateurs & Hoteliers Federation believes strongly in the need for the hotels to be ascribed star categories, since this gives guests a clear system. The state, in its turn, needs to understand how many hotels there are, and what quality they are. This is a good and conscientious task. There is a number of certified agents that deal in this star-category procedure, and it normally takes a hotel one and a half months to get starred. The idea is not simply to ascribe a hotel a certain number of stars but also to provide sound advice on how to improve,’ says the Federation’s President Vadim Prasov.

There are over 500 hotels, B&Bs, and other types of accommodation in Sverdlovsk Region at the moment, over 60% of them in Yekaterinburg; the total number of rooms comes to more than 30,000.

According to Prasov, the city’s hotel infrastructure is, on the whole, ready to meet all of the FIFA’s requirements.