The creator of the World’s 50 Best Restaurants and Bars list has been crowned the world’s best hotel for the first time, and it’s the Passalacqua Hotel in Lake Como.
Just opened in June 2022 after several years of restoration of its 18th-century building, this small 24-room hotel has hosted the likes of Napoleon Bonaparte, Winston Churchill and Vincenzo Bellini Distinguished guests and made their home here. 1800s. The hotel’s meteoric rise among the jet set owes much to its charismatic owners, Paolo, Antonella and Valentina De Santis, who make This hotel became a real favorite and has a regular following, as is the much-loved Grand Hotel Tremezzo, also located on Lake Como. (Rates in Passalacqua next summer will start at about $1,800 a night.)
“If you can dream it, you can do it! Here we are!” A visibly moved Valentina De Santis received the top award. “We don’t have broad shoulders behind us, but we still get here.”
Passalacqua is followed by a series of iconic Asian accommodations. Rounding out the top five are Rosewood Hong Kong; Four Seasons Hotel Chao Phraya River, Bangkok; The Upper House, Hong Kong; and Aman Tokyo. La Mamounia in Marrakech followed – a victory for a city still reeling from the devastating earthquake of September 8.
While the top 10 was dominated by Asia, the list was heavily skewed towards Europe, leaving live viewers to wonder if it was actually Europe’s 50 Best Hotels, with hotels from the continent accounting for 21 of the 50 hotels. Apart from two properties in New York City – Aman and Equinox – no other hotels in the United States made the list. It’s also worth noting that independent hotels far outnumber branded entities; Marriott and Hilton both received zero Finalist Awards, but Aman and Four Seasons each received four Finalist Awards. Maybourne Hotel Group and Oetker Collection took home three awards each – both lesser-known brands but well-loved by luxury consumers.
The announcement, released under the striking medieval arches of London’s Guildhall, marks the first hotel-focused list published by the 50 Best team, best known for its global and regional restaurant and bar rankings, all of which The lists are compiled by British company William Reed Business Media. For 21 years, the World’s 50 Best Restaurants list has designated new global destinations such as Copenhagen or Lima, transforming them from second-tier cities into bucket-list gastronomic destinations.
“There are many factors that go into making such a successful list,” explains William Drew, director of content at William Reed, adding that the hotel list has been in the works for nearly a decade. “How it drives the hotel business is important, and on a slightly less empirical level, how it encourages discovery—cultural discovery—encourages you to travel to new places in the world that you might not otherwise do.” (Inaugural edition. A major sponsor of the World’s 50 Best Hotels list is SevenRooms, a restaurant and hotel backend technology platform.)
This is especially true for the 50 Best Restaurants. But when it comes to this year’s hotel roster, the potential to chart new destinations is far from being realized.
In addition to La Mamounia (6th place), Marrakech has another shortlist: the Royal Mansour (23rd place); if these honors can make tourists interested in traveling to this red city If the country is confident of its capabilities, then it would be a huge boon to the city, which has been largely unscathed by the earthquake and relies heavily on its tourism economy. Likewise, Sri Lanka could benefit; Amangala, at No. 38, may not feature that prominently on the list, but it rightfully brings attention to a country where tourism has struggled to take hold, despite its wealth of hospitality , gastronomic and cultural attractions.
The process by which World’s 50 Best compiles its rankings is based on the first-person experiences of 580 reviewers, who are assigned their roles by regional department heads known as academy chairs. These jurors each vote in order of preference for the top seven hotels they’ve stayed at within the past 24 months (in future iterations of the list, the window will be narrowed to 18 months). Jurors can be considered experts in the industry as hoteliers, employees, travel agents or journalists (including those who are often hosted for free on press tours and familiarization tours), or simply because of having a particularly mobile lifestyle.
In addition to the 50 best hotels, six hotels received special awards: Among them, Soneva Fushi Maldives was named Lost Explorer’s Best Beach Hotel (Best Hotel Within 20 Meters from the Beach), and Capella Bangkok was named Named Nikka’s Best New Hotel, recognizing top hotels opening during the first two-year voting window from May 2021 to May 2023.
Other special honors include the Flor de Caña Eco Hotel, a sustainability award awarded to Singita Lodges Kruger National Park in South Africa. Conservation and social empowerment are the park’s top priorities; the hotels’ chefs come from their own culinary school, which specializes in training local at-risk youth, and the Carlo Alberto Weymouth Best Boutique Hotel (Carlo Alberto Vermouth Best Boutique Hotel) was rated the top independent hotel with 50 rooms or less by The Newt in Somerset.
The seventh special award went to Soneva CEO Sonu Shivdasani, who was also the only individual to receive individual recognition at the ceremony. (The award recognizes “positive forces in the global hospitality industry.”) His three resorts, including No. 7 Soneva Fuji and No. 36 Soneva Jani, are temples of sustainable luxury; after Located in the Maldives, the property has two overwater villas with their own waterslides and their own glass recycling plant, all on a small private atoll.
When asked whether the ongoing effects of the pandemic, such as the slow reopening of Asia’s borders, would affect the rankings, Drew expressed confidence in the system. “I believe it’s been pretty even, and parts of the world that have been slower to come out of lockdown have caught up because of pent-up demand,” he said. In fact, Asia is doing very well.
But geographic diversity is a challenge. Drew said great emphasis was placed on establishing a geographically diverse judging panel to ensure the list had the potential to reflect the entire globe, not just the major capitals with the highest number of international visitors. But he admits it’s a daunting task. “It will never be a perfect, completely fair system. It’s impossible. This is the best we can do.”
That said, there is only one hotel in South America that makes the list: Rosewood São Paulo. Of all the incredible, highly luxurious safari lodges on the continent, only Singita Lodges Kruger National Park gets the nod. (The same representation problem plagued La Liste’s recent hotel rankings, which ranked the Belmond Hotel Cipriani among the best in the world; the hotel didn’t even make the list of the World’s 50 Best Hotels.) Kong Operations will only resume in October 2022 and January 2023 respectively, but these destinations have a combined three hotels in the top ten, perhaps indicating that even the most well-traveled professionals can only reach many of the world’s locations in two years. corner. span. The fact that these travel experts are prioritizing new things or, in the case of post-pandemic travel, new things to do — might explain why this list leans more toward buzz than best overall.
How do you compare a colorful beach resort in St. Barts to an urban oasis with a lobby on the 33rd floor of Tokyo’s Otemachi Tower? The complexity of the proposition—all apples and oranges—is what makes the list interesting, Drew said. “We wanted to have a conversation about what makes a great hotel because everyone has a slightly different answer,” he explains. “That’s positive for us. It energizes it and keeps it moving forward and evolving.”
Below is the complete list of the 50 best hotels in the world.
1. Passalacqua, Lake Como, Italy
2. Rosewood Hong Kong
3. Four Seasons Hotel Bangkok at Chao Phraya River
4.The Upper House, Hong Kong
5. Aman Tokyo
6. La Mamounia, Marrakech, Morocco
7. Soneva Fuji Island, Maldives
8. One & Only Mandarina, Puerto Vallarta, Mexico
9. Four Seasons Florence, Italy
10. Mandarin Oriental, Bangkok
11. Capella Bangkok (Nihua Best New Hotel Award)
12. Carlyle Hotel, Brisbane
13. Chablé Yucatan, chocolate, Mexico
14. Aman Venice
15. Singita Lodge Kruger National Park (Flor de Caña Eco-Hotel Award)
16. Claridge’s Hotel, London
17. Raffles Hotel Singapore
18. Nihisumba Island, Indonesia
19. Hotel Esencia, Tulum, Mexico
20. La Sirenuse, Positano, Italy
21. Borgo Egnazia, Zavaletri, Italy
22. Connaught Hotel London
23. Royal Mansour Hotel, Marrakech, Morocco
24. Four Seasons Madrid
25. Aman New York
26. Maybourne Riviera, Roquebrune-Cap-Martin, France
27. Rosewood St. Paul
28. Capella Singapore
29. Paris Le Bristol
30. Park Hyatt Kyoto
31. La Reserve, Paris
32. Gleneagles, Auchterard, Scotland
33. Hotel Ducayden Roc, Antibes, France
34. Cheval Blanc, Paris
35. Four Seasons Astyle Palace Hotel Athens
36. Soneva Jani, Maldives
37. The Newt, Bruton, UK (Best Boutique Hotel Award)
38. Amangala, Sri Lanka
39. HOSHINOYA Tokyo
40. Potato Head Village, Bali
41. Eden Rock, St. Barths
42. Siam Hotel Bangkok
43. Badrutt Palace, St. Moritz, Switzerland
44. Atlantis Royal Hotel, Dubai
45. The Oberoi Amavilas, Agra, India
46. Nomad London
47. Savoy Hotel London
48. Equinox New York
49. Six Senses Ibiza
50. Hotel Crillon Paris
