The world’s best hotel is on the shores of a stunning lake in Italy

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 is largely due to its charismatic owners, Paulo, Antonella and Valentina DeSantis, who have made the hotel a true labor of love and serve as The owners have a built-in following.dearest Grand Hotel Tremezzo, also in 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!” Valentina De Santis was visibly moved as she received the top prize. “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 follows closely behind – 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. With the exception of two entries in New York City, Aman Like 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 now, 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 contribute to 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 less empirical level, how it encourages discovery – cultural discovery – encouraging people to travel to new parts of the world that you might not otherwise do.” (Inaugural World) A major sponsor of the 50 Best Restaurants 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 realized.

In addition to La Mamounia (6th place), Marrakech has another shortlisted team: the Royal Mansour (23rd place); if these honors can make tourists interested in traveling to the 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 may benefit; Amangalla, ranked 38th, may not feature as prominently on the list, but it rightfully brings attention to a country where tourism has struggled to take hold, despite Rich hospitalitygastronomic 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 voted in order of preference for the top seven hotels they had 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, the Soneva Fushi Hotel Maldives was named the Lost Explorer’s Best Beach Hotel (the best hotel within 20 meters from the beach), Capella Bangkok Named Nikka’s Best New Hotel, recognition of the 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 hotel hires chefs from its own culinary school, which trains local at-risk youth and won the Carlo Alberto Vermouth Award for Best Boutique Hotel salamander of somerset As a top independent hotel with 50 rooms or less.

The seventh special award was presented to Soneva CEO Sonu Shivdasani, who was also the only person 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; 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 also plagues La Liste recent hotel rankings, among which the Belmond Hotel Cipriani is ranked the best in the world; the hotel does not even rank among the 50 best hotels in the world. ) Although international travel to Japan and Hong Kong will only resume in October 2022 and January 2023 respectively, these destinations have three hotels in the top ten, perhaps showing that even the most well-traveled pros , it can only reach a limited corner of the earth in two years. In fact, these travel experts are prioritizing the new, or in the case of post-pandemic travel, the new—which might explain why this list leans more toward buzz than best overall.

As for how you compare Colorful beach resorts in St. Barts To the urban oasis Its lobby is on the 33rd floor Tokyo 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 world’s 50 best hotels.

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 Hotel
15. Singita Lodge Kruger National Park (Flor de Caña Ecolodge Award)
16. Claridge’s Hotel, London
17. Raffles Hotel Singapore
18. Nihisumba Island, Indonesia
19. Essencia Hotel, Tulum, Mexico
20. La Sirenuse, Positano, Italy
21. Borgo Egnazia, Zavaletri, Italy
22. The Connaught Hotel, London
23. Royal Mansour Hotel, Marrakech, Morocco
24. Four Seasons Madrid
25. Aman New York Hotel
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. Hoshinoah Tokyo
40. Potato Head Village, Bali
41. Eden Rock, St. Barths
42. Siam Hotel Bangkok
43. Badrutt Palace, St. Moritz, Switzerland
44. Atlantis Royal HotelDubai
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