I read this article Incredible 7 Star Hotels and I was wondering how hotels are rated to begin with. Is this a worldwide system or is it regional?

I'm not sure how the ratings go, but I am willing to be that it is NOT a worldwide rating. I visited Europe this past June and some of the hotels that we stayed at were ranked 3 stars. Being from America, I was thinking that 3 stars is pretty good...turns out that there rating is a little more generous. The 3 star hotel was a 2 1/2 star at best...didn't even have air conditioning....

There doesn't seem to be a regularized rating system you can have across the world but this article helped me understand the concept a little better.

Well I have been through Europe and ended up thoroughly confusing myself. I had no time to research online or find out about the hotels and ended up finding out that the German three-star was a lot better than the Italian three-star and a French two-star was better than both. It a muddle!