THE WORLD’S BEST BOUTIQUE HOTELS ARE REVEALED

The winners of the Boutique Hotel Awards 2018 were announced last night at the prestigious Awards ceremony held at the Merchant Taylors’ Hall, London. The ceremony brought together an array of boutique hotel owners, travel and lifestyle press and travel industry influencers from all four corners of the globe.

This year’s keynote speech was delivered by Robin Sheppard, chairman of Bespoke Hotels and the Institute of Hospitality. Other esteemed guest presenters and speakers includedPaolo Macchiaroli, founder of My Private Villas; Alex Buchanan, co-owner and editor of Catering in Scotland; Game of Thrones actress, Laura Pradelska; Lara Asprey, founder of Asprey Introductions; Elisabeth Visoanska, founder of Visoanska; Nobert Meinike, Director of Marketing – Blacklane.

Information on the awards

The Boutique Hotel Awards is the first and only international awards organisation exclusively dedicated to recognising unique excellence among boutique hotels. The Awards, now in its 8th year, honours the people behind these outstanding properties and brings together members of The Master Key Society; where relationships are built exclusively among the Award Winners by facilitating hotel exchange visits between them.

Awards process

What makes a Boutique Hotel Award meaningful? Simply put, the hotels and private villas are actually visited. It is the only independent awards organisation in hospitality where each and every property is visited personally by an experienced hotel judge, who specialises in each category, and where decisions on winners depend on true first-hand guest experience at the property.

The winners were selected from over 300 Nominees in over 80 countries. Each entrant was nominated by a member of the Awards Nomination Committee, comprising 70 leading trailblazing travel experts, whose business it is to be ‘in the know’ concerning the extraordinary boutique hotels. The Awards then coordinate judge evaluation visits with each shortlisted nominee. The judges document all aspects of the guest experience covering six categories: dining and entertainment, design, facilities, location and, most importantly, staff service and overall emotional impact. Finally, these extensive hand-written evaluations are meticulously studied by our Awards Panel, which decides our regional and World’s Best Award winners.