Forbes Travel Guide (formerly known as Mobil Guide or Mobil Travel Guide) is a star rating service and online travel guide for hotels, restaurants and spas. In 2011, Forbes Travel Guide published its last set of guidebooks and, on November 15, 2011, launched its new online home, ForbesTravelGuide.com,startle
> which covers numerous international destinations, including Hong Kong, Macau, Beijing, Singapore, Shanghai, Mexico, the Caribbean, Latin America, Japan, Thailand and London. ForbesTravelGuide.com combines Forbes Travel Guide's Five-Star travel ratings system with insights and perspectives from Forbes Travel Guide's own inspectors.

History

Founded by Mobil and

Simon & Schuster Simon & Schuster LLC (, ) is an American publishing house owned by Kohlberg Kravis Roberts since 2023. It was founded in New York City in 1924, by Richard L. Simon and M. Lincoln Schuster. Along with Penguin Random House, Hachette Book Group US ...

in 1958, Forbes Travel Guide is the oldest travel guide in the United States. Ratings are given by anonymous, paid staff members in stars (Five-Star, Four-Star or Recommended ratings), based on objective criteria. A Forbes Travel Guide Five-Star rating is a considerable honor, with only 323 hotels, 102 spas and 74 restaurants receiving the top honor in 2022. The ratings serve as a

certification mark A certification mark on a commercial product or service is a registered Mark (sign), mark that enables its owner ("certification body") to certify that the goods or services of a particular provider (who is not the owner of the certification ...

, in that Mobil had registered trademarks for the phrases and designs indicating each star rating level, and allowed only rated establishments to display them. Initially, guides were regional and limited to the United States and Canada. The first, issued in 1958, covered five states in the Southwest and South Central United States. In 1960, this guide was revised and volumes covering the Northeastern States, the Great Lakes, and California and the West were introduced. Guides covering the Middle Atlantic States and the Northwestern states were introduced in 1962. In 1965, a guide for the Southeastern States was introduced, although only one state covered by this volume, Tennessee, had any Mobil service stations. Five-star restaurants in the United States: Later, the number of volumes was expanded, as regions covered by the guide shrank. For instance, California was covered by two volumes, one for the north and one for the south. City guides also followed. By 1975

Rand McNally Rand McNally is an American technology and publishing company that provides mapping software and hardware for consumer electronics, commercial transportation, and education markets. The company is headquartered in Rosemont, Illinois with a di ...

began publishing the Mobil Travel Guides. In 1988, Simon & Schuster's

Prentice Hall Prentice Hall was a major American publishing#Textbook_publishing, educational publisher. It published print and digital content for the 6–12 and higher-education market. It was an independent company throughout the bulk of the twentieth cen ...

division acquired the travel books division of Rand McNally. Fodor's, a division of

Random House Random House is an imprint and publishing group of Penguin Random House. Founded in 1927 by businessmen Bennett Cerf and Donald Klopfer as an imprint of Modern Library, it quickly overtook Modern Library as the parent imprint. Over the foll ...

, began publishing the guides in 1995. In 2001, Mobil Travel Guide was spun off as a separate company, with ExxonMobil and publisher Publications International as an investor. In 2008, Forbes Travel Guide launched the international star ratings program for hotels and spas with the release of the inaugural Forbes Travel Guide Beijing and Forbes Travel Guide Hong Kong and Macau. Published in print by ExxonMobil Travel Publications, until 2011, the guide was published online by HowStuffWorks.com. In October 2009,

ExxonMobil Exxon Mobil Corporation ( ) is an American multinational List of oil exploration and production companies, oil and gas corporation headquartered in Spring, Texas, a suburb of Houston. Founded as the Successors of Standard Oil, largest direct s ...

licensed the brand to the Five Star Ratings Corporation, which is owned by internet entrepreneur and WebMD founder Jeff Arnold. Five Star Travel Corporation entered into a licensing agreement with Forbes Media, and renamed the Star Awards and guidebook series, Forbes Travel Guide. Forbes Travel Guide's new online home, ForbesTravelGuide.com, was launched in 2011, which marked the last year of publication of the traditional printed guidebook series. In 2019, Forbes Travel Guide formed an exclusive partnership with Jet Linx Aviation, becoming the guide's first partner in the private aviation industry.

Star Ratings

The Mobil Travel Guide Star Ratings provided ratings and reviews of hotels, restaurants and spas on a scale of one star (average to good) to five stars (one of the best in the country) starting in 1958. Forbes Travel Guide has continued the Five-Star ratings with ratings categories of Five-Star, Four-Star and Recommended, and has a team of inspectors who anonymously evaluate properties against proprietary standards.startle
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References

External links

*{{cite web , url=https://www.forbes.com/forbes-travel-guide/ , title=Forbes Travel Guide , work= Forbes.com , access-date=29 December 2014 Forbes Restaurant guides Travel guide books 1958 establishments in Georgia (U.S. state) 2011 disestablishments in Georgia (U.S. state)