MGTA Certified
A single level. You either are or you are not: truthfulness has no silver or bronze — you either deliver what you promise or you do not.
The full standard
How the MGTA seal is made
Three families of weighted criteria — truthfulness 40%, sustainability 30%, integration 30% —, a binary live-data requirement, a seven-step process and three degrees of sanction. All verifiable, all public.
What it is, what it is not
Honesty by design
- It is not a marketing seal: worldwide evidence that seals move demand is weak — MGTA does not sell demand, it sells verifiability.
- It does not replace the national framework: it requires the National Tourism Registry and licence, and operates as a live verification layer on top of them.
- It is not a membership club: it can be lost, and the loss is published with name, date and cause.
- It does not certify what it cannot verify: better 24 criteria with evidence than 300 on paper.
The three families
The 24 criteria and their verification
Every criterion is worded as a promise that can be checked against evidence: the auditor does not opine, it verifies. This is the low band of criteria worldwide — on purpose: few criteria, all with evidence.
Truthfulness of the offer
40%100% mandatoryWhat is promised is what is delivered. It is the core of the seal: its ten criteria are 100% mandatory — truthfulness admits no partial credit.
V-1Published price = charged priceInvoice against the published rate, with a real booking test.
V-2Published availability = real availabilityBooking test across channels + record of confirmed bookings honoured.
V-3What is described = what is deliveredOn-site audit against the operator’s own published listing.
V-4Own, current photosOn-site photo comparison; own images, less than 24 months old.
V-5Schedules and policies are operationalOperational test + interview: what is published is what is practised.
V-6Declared claims are verifiableEvery claim (location, services, accessibility) is checked against evidence; false ones are removed.
V-7A live complaints channelPublic complaints channel and reply within the declared deadline.
V-8Visible legal identityTax ID, National Tourism Registry and valid licence, displayed and legible.
V-9Staff know what is promisedFront-line staff interviews (at least 3) during the audit.
V-10No active misleading advertisingSworn statement + public search; an active sanction or proven claim prevents certification.
Sustainability of the operation
30%At least 6 of 7The operation knows and respects its carrying capacity, has documented environmental and contingency protocols, and a verifiable relationship with its community.
S-1Own carrying capacity declaredA document stating its limit (rooms, slots, guests per shift) checked against real operation.
S-2Measured baselineWater, energy and waste measured at least monthly, with records.
S-3Documented contingency planWritten protocol for sargassum, service outages and weather, with evidence of use.
S-4Verifiable community relationshipLocal purchasing and/or local employment declared with documentary support.
S-5Immediate surroundings respectedNo active damage to the adjoining environment; reef-safe products where applicable.
S-6Trained staffBasic safety and sustainability training, with records.
S-7Documented continuous improvementAt least one improvement action per cycle, with evidence of execution.
Systemic integration
30%At least 6 of 7 + the binary requirementThe operator takes part in the destination system: it reports its own service states to the traffic light, respects the data layer and is part of the safety protocols.
I-1Certainty traceabilityEvery data point it publishes or reports carries its source label.
I-2Seal QR points to the living recordThe certificate QR resolves the operator’s record on the public board, with a current state.
I-3Operational reportingReports through the team channel at the declared minimum frequency.
I-4Destination contingency protocolTakes part in the Green Corridor protocol during events.
I-5Traffic light–certificate coherenceThe published service state does not contradict what is certified; if the service falls, the traffic light shows it.
I-6Destination memoryThe operator’s events and incidents feed the destination’s public memory.
I-7Dissent channelKnows and respects the public complaints channel — including complaints against the standard itself and its evaluator.
I-0 · ENTRY CONDITION
Live data: feed the traffic light
Feeding the traffic light with the operator’s own service states is an entry condition, not a weighted criterion. No live data, no MGTA certification — as simple as that. An accommodation that is impeccable in truthfulness and sustainability but does not report its live state is not MGTA-certified: it is a good accommodation with someone else’s seal.
The full process
From application to decertification
- 1ApplicationOnline registration with a valid National Tourism Registry and licence, the public listing of the offer (the one to be audited), and acceptance of the live-data rule and of the first cohort study.
- 2Self-assessmentThe public checklist of the 24 criteria, with evidence. The checklist IS the standard: there is no secret document and no mandatory consultant.
- 3AuditOn-site for the first cohort: a real booking test, on-site comparison of listing and photos, staff interviews and verification of the data flow. Half a day per establishment.
- 4DecisionIssued by the external evaluator based on the audit report — not by the Lab. Not even for its own company: the experimental demonstration is also decided by the evaluator.
- 5ValidityTwo years, with continuous live oversight: coherence between the traffic light and the certificate is observed automatically, without waiting for the calendar.
- 6RenewalTied to the live state: continuity of data reporting, a passed annual documentary review and a renewal audit. Pure calendar renewal does not exist in MGTA.
- 7DecertificationThree degrees: minor non-conformity (30-day correction), multiple non-conformity (visible suspension) and decertification (deliberately broken truthfulness or sustained breach), with nominal publication in the registry.
Levels
One level, and a ladder that rewards consistency
Sustained live integration ladder
It rewards consistency, not a one-off exam: continuous years of live data and coherence between the traffic light and the certificate. It is a declarative, public recognition on the living record — it does not change the truthfulness bar: an operator with five years on the ladder can still be decertified for broken truthfulness.
- Sustained Integration · 3 continuous years
- Sustained Integration · 5 continuous years
Sanctions
Three degrees, and decertification is published
Minor non-conformity
A single criterion out of compliance, rectifiable (for example, a reporting delay).
A 30-day correction window; the seal remains; the event stays in the destination memory.
Multiple non-conformity
Two or three criteria breached, or truthfulness damaged without intent.
Visible suspension: the living record shows “under correction” and the physical seal is withdrawn until fixed.
Decertification
Deliberately broken truthfulness (charged price different from the published one, faked availability, a false claim), sustained breach of live data, or misleading use of the seal.
Decertification and nominal publication in the public registry, with date and cause.
The registry separates valid certificates from decertified ones, with date and cause — because a truthfulness standard whose registry hides breaches contradicts itself.
The first cohort
Small on purpose, measured before and after
The first cohort is 3–5 hotels from the candidates identified in the territory, plus a declared experimental demonstration. No nodes — nodes are a municipal piece and join the second cohort.
DECLARED EXPERIMENTAL DEMONSTRATION
Global Rent a Car — candidate 0
Takes part as candidate 0: a declared experimental demonstration, to prove the standard applies to a real operation. The decision to certify it — or reject it — belongs exclusively to the external evaluator, never to the Lab. The Lab submits itself first to the same bar it imposes.
The before/after study protocol
The cohort produces the evidence the sector does not have anywhere in the world: what changes, if anything, when an operator goes through a verifiable truthfulness standard. The protocol is honest by design.
| Indicator | Source | CL |
|---|---|---|
| Occupancy | Operator records | O |
| Average daily rate | Operator records | O |
| Online reviews (volume and rating) | Public platforms | P |
| Booking origin (direct or agency) | Operator records | O |
| Complaints and response time | Operator channel | O |
| Traffic light–certificate coherence | The system, automated | V |
A baseline before certification, with follow-up at 6 and 12 months. A small sample, no control group — and that is declared. No claimed causality: per-operator series with their context (season, connectivity) alongside. Publishing the study is part of the milestone.
Integration with the living system
A certificate that takes part, not one that decorates
- Data to the traffic light: the certified operator feeds the destination traffic light with its own service states — with a source label on every data point.
- QR to the board: the physical and digital seal carries a QR that resolves the operator’s living record on the destination’s public board.
- Certainty chips on every data point: the living record declares the certainty of each value — a truthfulness standard cannot publish data without declared certainty.
No QR is issued whose destination is not public and verified — first the board is turned on, then the first seal is issued.
The destination’s public board is on: sot-paraguachoa.pages.dev/tablero — the SOT’s public face, live. The first half of the rule is already met: the board exists and is public; the first seal will come after the first audit.
Pr The seal’s live verification does not exist in any other standard in the world (checked against 28 international models, October 2026); the claim is re-verified before each edition of the standard.
The legal bridge
A complementary reference standard
“Tourism service providers may be rated with tourism quality seals issued by the public or private sector, provided that… such seals hold the proper certification from the ministry with competence in tourism matters.”
Venezuela’s Organic Tourism Law, article 98 (2014) — text checked against the official document. [V]MGTA is offered as a complementary reference standard to the national framework. It does not replace the National Tourism Registry, the tourism licence, the star categorisation or the ministry’s Tourism Quality Seal: it requires them as prerequisites, and operates as a live verification layer on top of them.
The adoption of MGTA as a complementary reference standard appears in the Ministerial Resolution proposed to the ministry (article 2) — a proposal, not a fact: it is not signed as of today. Pr
Honest governance
Two times, declared
- The standard is designed by the Lab — with communities taking part in the criteria review.
- The certification decision is issued by the external evaluator: the Lab decides no certification, not even its own company’s.
- Data operations run on the SOT’s live infrastructure.
- The experimental demonstration is declared in all public material.
- Decisions and decertifications are published.
- The Commonwealth of the 11 municipalities receives custody of the standard once constituted — the transfer is pre-registered.
- The concession to the lab has an express legal basis and a twenty-year cap, with free reversion.
- International accreditation of the certifier is the future maturity scale.
- The lesson from other seals that died with their founder: transferable custody exists so the standard outlives its designer.
How to read the labels
Every data point declares its certainty
VVerified — confirmed against the primary source.
EEstimated — several independent sources or a model with a declared method.
PProxy — inferred from platform footprints.
OObserved — dated team record.
DDesign — a decision or parameter of the standard; it does not measure the world.
SSynthesis — interpretation over already-labelled data.
PrProposal — a statement about the future with a falsification condition.
The same rule governs the standard and the destination system: a data point without its certainty label is an error, not an oversight.