Worldwide: The Forbes Travel Guide has revealed its updated travel guide for 2020.
This includes 107 new hotels gaining five-star ratings and recommendations from the publication.
The guide is one of the largest independent travel publications, having taken over from Mobil who originated the five star system in the United States.
London distinguished itself as the city with the highest number of five-star hotels, with 19 properties listed. This is the second year in a row London held this honour, with hotels like The Berkeley, the historic Four Seasons and Brown’s Hotel all highly recommended.
The Maldives saw the biggest growth, accruing six of the highest available awards. The properties there made their mark either through their use of unique offerings and experiences, or through unique designs, both modernist and classical.
Other newcomers include Cambodia, Cape Town, Moscow, Ireland, Prague, and Tahiti. Sixteen countries made their debuts on the list, making this one of the widest and most globally diverse lists yet.
The magazine’s core American market saw modest improvement, with nine properties joining the top tier of offerings. Las Vegas, Miami, California and Rhode Island saw the majority of new offerings available.
The guide also notes many hotel amenities improving greatly, with over 40 restaurants and 24 spas gaining top marks. Macau demonstrated its dominance, holding 23 of the top restaurant winners and five of the new top spas.
The boutique and luxury hotel industry continues a pattern of strong growth- a report earlier today revealed Europe alone had a pipeline of over 1500 projects. This report confirms that the boutique industry has significant global potential for the year ahead.
