What The World’s 50 Best Hotels Left Out

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The winners of The World’s 50 Best Hotels were announced last week at a ritzy ceremony in London. (You can probably imagine the kind of party the hospitality industry elite would throw — live countdown, popping champagne corks, giant afterparty at NoMad London.) The awards, now in their second year, are produced by William Reed, who also created The World’s 50 Best Restaurants and The World's 50 Best Bars, accolades you’re probably more familiar with, because they’ve been around longer and because we eat and drink more than we travel.

The World’s 50 Best Hotels are determined by a group of nearly 600 anonymous voters considered experts in global hospitality (a mix of journalists, hoteliers, advisors, and seasoned travelers) who adhere to strict procedures: Judges select and rank seven hotels that they must have stayed in within the last two years. They also nominate their picks for special awards for Industry Icon, the Art of Hospitality, and Most Admired Hotel Group. 

Because hotels and individuals cannot apply for consideration, it’s inevitable that hotels with higher profiles — those that are part of big global brands, those with hefty marketing budgets — are more likely to make the cut. And that it’s more challenging for small hotels to get recognized. Case in point: Of the 50 hotels on the list this year, only 16 are privately owned. The rest are part of a larger hotel group, like Rosewood or Hyatt. Four Seasons had four winners on the list; Aman had three and also won Most Admired Hotel Group.

While many Fathom Favorites are on the list — including jaw-dropping beauties like Lake Como’s Passalaqua (#2), Hong Kong’s The Upper House (#5), and Tulum’s Hotel Esencia (#48) — we would have loved to see even more hotels that are intimate, idiosyncratic, independent, and under the radar. (And anything but the usual suspects spotted in influencers’ Instagrams.) 

So we came up with a few additions to the list.

As they say in Hollywood during awards season, for your consideration… 

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