The much-anticipated awards ceremony for The World’s 50 Best Hotels heads back to London after its glittering launch last year
Following its debut last year, The World’s 50 Best Hotels will return again to London, UK, in September 2024 with a multi-day event programme culminating in the industry’s most highly anticipated annual awards ceremony on Tuesday 17 September 2024. The World’s 50 Best Hotels joined the established lists of The World’s 50 Best Restaurants and The World’s 50 Best Bars in 2023, and the inaugural ranking saw Passalacqua in Lake Como crowned as the first-ever No.1 with the title of The World’s Best Hotel.
After a successful 2023 launch in London, the event programme and awards ceremony will again unite the travel and hospitality community from all corners of the globe in recognition of the best hotels in the world. The list and awards will highlight outstanding global hotel experiences that will shape the aspirations of consumers, travellers and hoteliers alike. The World’s 50 Best Hotels will be an unbridled celebration over the course of several days with new events included as part of the line-up, which will be announced in due course.
Tim Brooke-Webb, Managing Director for 50 Best, says: “We are thrilled to see the second edition of The World’s 50 Best Hotels brought back to London. To gather so many important travel industry figures together again to honour and celebrate the best hotel experiences around the world is a truly special moment. We are delighted that London, an international hub which has a thriving and ever-evolving hotel scene, will play host to the awards ceremony again this year, and we look forward to presenting a truly independent ranking, curated by carefully selected experts from across the world. Our programme of events will allow the hotel community to take the time to celebrate international travel, exchange ideas, create new connections and lead the conversation on what’s next in the innovative hotel sector.”
Highlights for the event programme will include a ‘Welcome to London’ event and The Opening Banquet, which takes place the night before the reveal of The World’s 50 Best Hotels 2024, giving the hoteliers behind the 50 listed properties the opportunity to meet with their peers from around the world. For the first time ever, 50 Best will bring its thought leadership forum, #50BestTalks, to The World’s 50 Best Hotels, designed to give hoteliers and travel experts a platform to discuss groundbreaking, industry-leading trends and topics of interest. It will be followed by a captivating awards ceremony, which will feature red-carpet arrivals and interviews, a drinks reception and the ceremony and countdown itself. The awards will be followed by a press conference with representatives from The World’s Best Hotel and other special awards winners. As we celebrate the second year of the ranking, two new award categories will be added to this year’s awards ceremony: Highest New Entry Award and Highest Climber Award. In the months leading up to the awards in September, various special award winners will be announced.
Any hotel worldwide is eligible to be voted for; it does not have to fit any criteria or tick any pre-ordained boxes to be considered. The awards are not ‘pay to play’ – meaning the venues themselves do not have to pay to enter the awards, nor will they have to buy tickets to the events or invest any fiscal sum in the nomination process.
The World’s 50 Best Hotels 2024 will be revealed as part of a live countdown from No.50 to No.1, concluding with the hotel which will be named The World’s Best Hotel. The ranking will be complemented by a host of special awards and will reflect the very best travel experiences around the globe, collated from the votes of 600 anonymous experts. This voting panel – the 50 Best Hotels Academy – comprises a balanced mix of hoteliers, travel journalists, educators and seasoned luxury travellers, led by a group of industry-leading Academy Chairs.
How the 50 Best voting works
The 9 Academy Chairs each select a voting panel from their region, ensuring a balance of hoteliers, travel journalists, hotel educators and seasoned luxury travellers. Each Academy member can vote for any hotel they have stayed in around the world, irrespective of their home region. Each voter casts seven votes for hotels in order of preference based on stays experienced in the two-year voting period up to April 2024. Voting is carried out individually and strictly confidentially on a secure site and remains confidential before the list announcement. Academy Chairs are not privy to, nor have any knowledge of, the votes cast by the voters in their respective regions; furthermore, they are not official spokespeople for the 50 Best brand.
The Academy is the mechanism used to create The World’s 50 Best Hotels list. None of the employees of 50 Best nor any sponsors associated with the awards has any influence over the results. To ensure the more than 580-voter-strong Academy provides a fair representation of the global hotel scene, the Academy Chairs are split across 9 geographical regions, with each Chair selected as an expert on the travel scene in their region, with outstanding hotel sector contacts. These Chairs each select a voting panel, ensuring a balanced selection of hoteliers, travel journalists, hotel educators, business travellers and consumer travel aficionados. A minimum of 25% of the panel will be renewed each year. All voters, aside from the Academy Chairs, will remain anonymous to eliminate the possibility of lobbying.
Theodore is the Co-Founder and Managing Editor of TravelDailyNews Media Network; his responsibilities include business development and planning for TravelDailyNews long-term opportunities.
