Fuck you, World’s 50 Best Hotels

Another year, another World’s 50 Best Hotels list.  Let me just take a few moments to review the results and… oh, fuck it.  Three of the best seven hotels in the entire world are in Bangkok?!  Did everyone collectively shit the bed, all at once?

As much as I’d like to pretend otherwise, these World’s 50 Best Hotels lists matter.  People use them.  Unlike a lot of the other fluff out there, these guys even throw themselves a big, shiny ceremony, prancing around like they’re proud of their ineptitude.  It’s like the opening stages of Britain’s Got Talent when someone walks on stage with a wooden spoon, then tries to play it like a flute with their arse.

Case in point: The Lana.  Look, I’m not here to wipe my arse on this place.  It’s a beautiful hotel, nicely decorated, with good service and food.  But if you put it next to any of the Paris palaces or London’s grand dames, it doesn’t even belong in the same conversation.  It’s next to a motorway.  Its view?  A construction site, or if you swivel your head a bit, another construction site.

Second case in point: Atlantis The Royal.  Look I’m happy to wipe my arse on this place.  It’s a goddamn travesty.

And I could go on and on.  Janu Tokyo, Hotel Il Pellicano, Soneva Fushi – just a few of many that don’t deserve to be on the list.  But who has time for that when I’ve already done it before?  Twice.

With the Conde Nast Gold List or Travel & Leisure awards, there’s an understanding, a little whisper of shame.  Hotels slap the badge on their website, but they know —and we know — that winning those awards is about as meaningful as a participation trophy.  Every year, the email spam rolls in from lodges begging for votes.  It’s a good old-fashioned “he who shouts loudest” contest and congratulations, you’re “the best”.

But World’s 50 Best?  Oh no, they want you to believe they’re different.  This isn’t a popularity contest for the peasants.  No, this is decided by “the experts,” the shadowy illuminati of luxury royalty who supposedly know better than us mere mortals.  And hotels shout it from the rooftops like it actually means something.  It’s exclusive.  Alluring.  Prestigious.

And it’s complete and utter bullshit.

So this is my last post about it.  No, really.  I said that last year, and here I am again, because their absurdity knows no bounds.  But enough.  Giving them attention only feeds the beast.  Let’s try something new.  Let’s starve it of oxygen, which ironically, hopefully burns the entire thing to the ground.