Our panelists showed their appreciation for hotel refurbishings begun in flusher times. The biggest gainers: the American hotels.
By Lois Madison Reamy and the Institutional Investor Editorial Research team compiled the rankings.
September 2001
Institutional Investor Magazine
One would expect the readers of a financial magazine to appreciate capital investment. And it appears that the panelists of Institutional Investor’s 21st annual hotel survey do: They named San Francisco’s Ritz-Carlton, beneficiary of an $8 million refurbishing, the top hotel, propelling it 30 places up from its rank last year. The Ritz’s new look, created with rich, vibrant colors, is eye-popping, too.
Capital outlays bolstered other hotels as well. A dozen or more U.S. establishments added a $12 million spa here or embarked on a $25 million room-revamping there, leading to much-improved performance for American hotels overall. No fewer than 37 American hotels placed in the ranking - the most ever - all but five of them within the U.S.
But it wasn’t only in the New World that investment produced dividends. Worldwide, hotels that reached into their pockets saw their ranks rocket. Paris’s Bristol, for example, shot up from No. 41 to No. 2 after a face-lift on its 50-room R,sidence wing, and Sydney’s Park Hyatt climbed from No. 16 to No. 5 with the opening of its Harbour Kitchen & Bar, overlooking the city’s opera house.
This year, as last, 80 hotels met the survey standards, but the top 14 (see table below) turned in distinctly higher marks, largely on the back of enhancements to their facilities. The top 14 scored between 89.0 and 92.6; by comparison, last year’s highest score was 89.9.
In the regional rankings (see table, below), which reflect local travel patterns, the most striking development was the unusually poor showing of Asia-Pacific hotels. Only 14 placed this year, compared with 23 in 2000. But panelists’ responses suggest that this had less to do with deteriorating standards than with the region’s declining economy, which grounded many a business traveler.
By contrast, the global downturn seems to have had scant impact on European and American results over the past year. This year’s ranking features nine London hotels - the most from any city. (In last year’s ranking London and Hong Kong were the top cities, each with seven hotels.) New York comes in second, with seven hotels, and Hong Kong places third, with six. Altogether the ranking embraces 36 cities, from Amsterdam to Singapore.
The human Baedekers who constitute our panel visited a grand total of 601 hotels. Their formula for a great establishment: a good location, unimpeachable service, architecture of distinction and pleasant decor. The panelists also put a premium on fitness facilities, high-tech phones, Internet connections, good television (with CNBC, please), excellent restaurants and large rooms and baths. Luxury hotels offer of the above as a matter of course. But it’s how they meld these elements into an outstanding ambience that makes all the difference in the upper reaches of the ranking. The bottom line: How does it actually feel to be there?
“Great” is apparently the predominant answer if it’s the Ritz-Carlton in San Francisco. The Nob Hill hotel offers fine indoor and terrace dining, traditional furnishings and high-speed Internet connections. If your laptop crashes at 2:00 a.m., don’t despair; dial IT room service. Housed in a 1909 neoclassical commercial building that was converted into a hotel in 1991, the Ritz-Carlton has legions of admirers to explain its No. 1 status. The CEO of one New York investment firm likes it “from soup to nuts - from the time you pull up in front until you leave.” He especially commends the hotel’s executive level: a floor dedicated to business travelers, with its own concierge, club lounge and refreshments “so plentiful, you don’t need a meal.”
Other travelers cited the charms of some other hostelries: three presidential suites big enough to host small summit meetings at the No. 2 Bristol in Paris (a restaurant with two Michelin stars doesn’t hurt, either); a soothing view of the Pacific Ocean from your room at the No. 9 Shutters on the Beach in Santa Monica; an ideal mix of service, amenities and mood at the No. 14 Four Seasons in Singapore; a rooftop cocktail bar overlooking Fifth Avenue at the No. 31 Peninsula in New York; a great location, attentive concierge and good value at the No. 43 New York Palace; a superb Mayfair address, impeccable service and exceptional meeting facilities at No. 54 Claridge’s and cozy anterooms off the lobby for perusing a newspaper at No. 77 Brown’s in London.
Institutional Investor asked more than 100 senior financial executives from 28 countries (who spent an average of 59 nights in hotels last year) to rate the places they’d visited recently. Using a scale of 1 to 100, they ranked them based on facilities, service and style. The scores were then tabulated according to a formula that assigns greater weight to the responses of the most-frequent travelers (a few of whom spend up to 200 nights a year in hotels). The results were averaged, and the top 80 hotels ranked accordingly. To qualify at all, a hotel had to receive a significant number of votes; even consistently well-rated hotels sometimes fail to secure the necessary quorum, which explains the absence from this year’s list of several notable hotels that ranked last year, including Buenos Aires’ Alvear Palace, the Lanesborough in London and Singapore’s Raffles.
Inn-side track
Not all of our panelists’ favorite hotels have the broad appeal to attract enough votes to merit a place in the ranking. Here we share some of their tips on undiscovered treasures and cut-price classics.
The focus of the 50-room Beverly Hills Inn near Los Angeles’s Rodeo Drive is a “lovely, quiet” garden and pool - and the bill for a stay tends to be about half that of a mainstream deluxe hotel in LA. Other little gems include Berlin’s strictly Bauhaus, 82-room Brandenburger Hof, whose timeless furniture has been shown at New York’s Museum of Modern Art; the 28-room Hªtel des Armures in Geneva’s Old Town, where presidents Jimmy Carter and Bill Clinton have both eaten in the medieval dining room; and Quito’s antique-filled ten-room MansiÑn del Angel bed-and-breakfast, which has a glassed-in roof garden for guests to enjoy breakfast or tea.
In the midsize range Amsterdam’s first-class Tulip Inn offers a glass-domed courtyard lobby and canal views from some of its 207 rooms; the luxurious if misnomered Vineyard Hotel and conference center in Cape Town’s Newlands suburbs boasts a backdrop of scenic Table Mountain (but no vineyard); Geneva’s dignified, polished President Wilson Hotel fronts on the waters of Lake Leman; London’s K&K Hotel George, set in Victorian townhouses encircling a sizable garden in Earls Court, is a bargain compared with its deluxe-hotel counterparts; and Rome’s classic Grand D’La Minerva has a summer rooftop restaurant facing the Pantheon.
In midtown Atlanta is an elegant period piece - the Georgian Terrace - which has 319 rooms (all suites) and celebrated the 1939 opening of Gone With the Wind in its ballroom. The Hyatt Regency in Greenwich, Connecticut - just a 45-minute rail commute from midtown Manhattan - recently underwent an $8 million refit. The well-appointed but well-priced Madrid City Center Crowne Plaza overlooks Plaza de EspaÐa from striking setback balconies. And the Nikko Tokyo, on an island in Tokyo Bay, has 453 balconied rooms and provides dazzling sunset views from its Tempura Restaurant. The five-year-old hotel is just four miles from the fashionable Ginza district. - L.M.R.
