The Varta guide is one of the few independent hotel and restaurant guides in Germany. Launched in 1957 and now one of the country's market leaders, it is published every October by the MAIRDUMONT publishing house. The hotels and restaurants featured in the Varta guide can also be accessed online. The website at www.varta-guide.de is updated daily and visitors to the site can check room availability and book overnight accommodation. They can also find restaurants and reserve a table online.

The Varta guide does not simply focus on the top restaurants and hotels. It is a useful reference for anyone who enjoys travelling and places importance on good food and accommodation.

The featured hotels and restaurants are ranked using Varta diamonds. The "Varta tips" are used to highlight establishments that offer outstanding services. All of the hotels and restaurants are checked anonymously at regular intervals by our permanent team of experts. Any information that we receive about an establishment from our readers and the businesses themselves is forwarded to our field staff.

The positive response of our readers (the Varta guide is the most frequently purchased hotel and restaurant guide) and the outstanding collaboration we enjoy with various hotel chains and cooperatives continually strengthen the belief in our philosophy of presenting an approved and recommended selection of hotels and restaurants.

In Germany there is no officially recognised system of hotel classification. Due to freedom of the press, everyone is entitled to express their own views about any hotel or restaurant. A number of hotel and restaurant guides are therefore available on the market. Freedom of the press also means that a number of different publications covering all spheres of life are produced for specific consumer target groups. Readers then choose from the diverse selection on offer and the editorial content helps to guide decisions such as hotel bookings, buying consumer goods and much more besides.

In the case of the Varta guide, out of approx. 37,000 accommodation establishments only around 8,000 are listed with Varta diamonds. From our point of view, however, every hotel featured in the Varta guide comes highly recommended, irrespective of how many Varta diamonds it has.