The Travel Group

Everyone seems to love a “best of” list. And travel is one of those topics where everyone seems to have an opinion. There are basically three different kinds of lists: the corporate lists, where a large (usually media) company such as Conde Nast Magazine or New York Times compiles its top lists, the individual lists, where a well-known personality, such as Andrew Parker or Karen Brown put together their top-rated places, and finally the democratic or “wiki” styled lists such as you see in Tripadvisor.

 

While public (“wiki”) sites such as Tripadvisor have their uses – it is fascinating and sometimes useful to hear about people’s personal experiences at hotel; they are mostly unreliable, unprofessional, subjective, and often completely biased (ie. submitted by an employee or a competitor of the place being rated or by someone with a personal axe to grind. Travel agents have a few secret rules of thumb when assessing Tripadvisor reviews to try to get around this problem.

 

For the professionally compiled lists, here are a few good ones, and what their features are:

 

 

Santiago, Chile; Koh Samui, Thailand; Iceland; and the Republic of Georgia are among their hot spots for 2011. These picks were submitted by the Times’ own travel journalists, and make up a very interesting and eclectic list of places for anyone’s “bucket list.”

 

2. Conde Nast Traveler: Gold List 2011

 

While this very comprehensive list is actually Conde Nast Traveler’s readers selections, not those of their professional writers, the list has a certain amount of credibility because (a) the readers form a pretty sophisticated demographic, spanning the globe, and (b) the magazine uses very detailed analysis of the readers’ survey responses, giving it a pseudo-science respectability. Contrast this list with, say, Zagats which cannot boast such a high-end and discriminating group of surveyees.

From their website (linked above) you can sort hotels by geography, and further refine it by comparing rooms, service, food, location, design, or activities. Cruiselines are also rated here.

 

3. Conde Nast Traveler: Hot List 2010

 

(Their 2011 edition has not yet been published). This list differs from the more famous “Gold List” in two ways – it is compiled from professional reviews and it focuses on new, hip or re-discovered hotels, night clubs & bars, and spas. To give you an idea, for Vancouver they have picked The Keefer, a new, tiny four-suite hotel located on Keefer St. in Chinatown.

 

4. Andrew Parker: Hideaway Report Grand Awards 2011

 

This highly regarded travel writer publishes his own award list every year, including Hideaway of the Year (Il Salviatino in Florence) and Grand Awards (including Toronto’s new boutique The Hazelton Hotel). While the actual reports must be purchased by membership or subscription, you can google the winners or check out news articles to find details of his reports. Eg. USA Today article in December.

 

5. Skytrax: World Airline Awards

  

         

6. AAA Five Diamond Awards 2011

 

AAA/CAA has a reputation for its scrupulously exacting standards based on very detailed and inflexible criteria for its inspectors. This lends reliability and objectivity to their ratings, but also tends to lead to rather predictable choices. Look for Ritz-Carlton, Four Seasons, Mandarin Oriental, and similar high-end chains to figure prominently in their list. The actual 2011 list of Five Diamond hotels is not available on the web yet, but the 2010 version is.

 

7.  Other lists. 

 

As mentioned above, it does seem like everyone has their top 10 lists.  Travel & Leisure Magazine has its “World’s Best Awards / 2010”, “500 Best Hotels / 2011”, and “America’s Favorite Cities / 2010”. Gourmet Magazine sells its Best Hotels list in magazine version only. Consumer Reports rates hotel chains (by budget, moderate, and deluxe). And maybe the quirkiest of lists comes from National Geographic whose entries range from interesting (eg. “great highways”) to truly quirky (eg. “best elevator rides.”) See my earlier article on this one.