The Condé Nast Traveler Readers Choice poll is the most authoritative survey of affluent American travelers, ranking the feedback and preferences of over 25,000 respondents.
The big news is that, undaunted by tough times, our readers are still way out in front, discovering the coolest experiences, electing the top performers for every kind of service—and reaffirming an enduring passion for travel. Look no further for the most stimulating global stimulus package you could hope for.
It's Still Up, Up, and Away for the community of readers of Condé Nast Traveler.
In a remarkable picture of how you spent your travel dollars in the past year—the toughest for the business in a long time—it's clear that you remain as adventurous, discerning, and devoted to the worldwide diversity of travel as ever. In fact, these 2009 Readers' Choice Awards emerge as a unique, reliable, and very timely leading economi indicator—there is no other resource to match them.
Consider this, for a start: The awards reflect the personal—and recent—travel experiences of 25,008 readers. They form, in effect, a global force of incognito inspectors with the power to rate every service crucial to travelers. To put that 25,008 in perspective, compare it to the 80 inspectors Michelin fields to produce the Red Guide to France—historically the most rigorous, feared, and, let it be said, idiosyncratic screening of the finest French hotels and restaurants.
And so these pages are not just our 22nd annual global survey, ferreting out the best performers in the travel business—invaluable though that is. Rather they are a striking, news‐making view of the state of world travel now. It is as wide as it is deep, going to the outer reaches of geography (as well as style) and drilling down into discrete patterns of behavior and taste.
The basic form is this: The survey is composed of categories—cities and islands; hotels and resorts; airlines, cruise lines, and car rental agencies, more than 10,000 candidates in all—each ranked on a set of relevant criteria.
A new and intriguing influence is becoming increasingly apparent. This year, fully one‐third of the hotels and resorts on our Top 100 list began their journey on our Hot List of the world's best new properties, published each May. The annual Hot Lists are sentinels. They are the earliest blips on the radar of newcomers of merit. And because our readers are ahead of the curve (and the crowds), they are connoisseurs of the cutting edge wherever it appears.
But innovation itself is not enough. The new needs to have quality, not just modishness, to endure. Which means that those Hot Listers which now make it to this list have passed that test. There isn't any other comparable screening process out there. Period.
Another salient result, and a heartening one in terms of travel's ability to stimulate economies, is geographical. In 2005, Africa merited a Top 20 list of resorts and safari camps (see "Africa's Rising Number of Resorts"). The following year, 2006, Africa generated a Top 25. In 2007, a Top 30. Last year, it shot up to a Top 50, where it remains (for now). One particularly notable reason: Africa has two resorts that earn perfect 100s for Location. And one country has both of them: Botswana. In fact, one region has them both: the Okavango Delta.
There are some entertaining and quirky facts, too. As in, how much does eating reveal about the relative friendliness of cities? (see "Would You Like an Insult with That?"). The Top 10 domestic cities are evenly split, five northern, five southern—and confirm two enduring regional truths: The highest‐rated cities for restaurants are San Francisco, New York, and Chicago, while the lowest are all well south: Savannah, San Diego, and Honolulu. On the other hand, Southern hospitality apparently extends beyond Dixie: The friendliest U.S. cities are Charleston,
Savannah, and Honolulu, while the least friendly, by an uncomfortable margin, is New York (54.0—ouch).
But when it comes to the grouchiest places on the planet, check out the Putin‐o‐meter, marking a handful of the most and least amiable destinations. The friendliest town of all is Ubud, at the jungly heart of Bali, an island that delivers a spectacular travel twofer: one of your favorite cities on one of your favorite islands. Seaside vacations aren't restricted to islands like Bali, of course. Any cruisaholic can tell you that they have never had more choices—or bigger ones.
About 50 ships already have passenger capacities of at least 2,500. This year, the cruise line category has a new subdivision—mega—in part to anticipate the ever bigger ships being built. Next month, the largest cruise ship yet, Royal Caribbean's Oasis of the Seas, will launch from Fort Lauderdale. How big is Oasis? It could easily carry the population of Okeechobee (5,376). It could carry Opa‐locka North if filled to the sky deck (6,296).
And yet . . . small is beautiful. The top‐scoring cruise line in the world could hardly be smaller. The word mega applies to Sea Cloud Cruises, too—its seagoing mega‐yachts accommodate fewer than 100 passengers (with 60 crew, no wonder the Service score is the 98.4, the highest on the high seas).
Mega ships have been called floating resorts, but true resorts need not fear. They're increasingly popular, particularly close to home: Half of the 85 resorts that score above 90 are in or near North America. After all, if you want to golf, or ski, or improve your backhand, there are plenty of great choices in our home hemisphere. But what if you want to golf at a thirteenth‐century castle, or snorkel under your overwater bungalow, or photograph elephants from your jungle balcony? In order: Ireland's Ashford Castle, a trove of resorts in Oceania,
and—the summit of this year's lists, the highest score in the world—the Four Seasons Tented Camp Golden Triangle in Thailand.
Resorts also come in all sizes, of course, even small—especially in the United States, where dozens have fewer than 50 rooms, and scores impressive enough to earn them their own subcategory, Top 20 Small U.S. Resorts. What's true for resorts is doubly true for hotels. This year, both the United States and Europe have such a wealth of exquisite small properties that both regions have new "Small" lists this year.
Fran Lebowitz may have spoken for all travelers when she said, "To put it rather bluntly, I am not the type who wants to go back to the land; I am the type who wants to go back to the hotel." Hotels are by far the biggest category in these Readers' Choice Awards—almost 600 populate the 15 regional lists. That represents more than 130,000 luxury rooms, ranging from the six at the Peninsula House in the Dominican Republic (the world's top hotel this year; see page 198) to the 4,027 at the Venetian in Las Vegas. Some destinations offer more choices than others, of course. Perhaps predictably, Vegas has the most—10,418 rooms in its four top‐rated hotels. Perhaps less
predictably, Beijing is next, with more than 5,800 rooms, just ahead of Shanghai and Hong Kong.
All in all, to use another fiscal metaphor of the moment, the 2009 Readers' Choice Awards are an unrivaled stimulus package for travel.
TOP ASIAN CITY
Asia's number one city this year, Ubud, is home to just over 8,000 inhabitants who, unsurprisingly perhaps, earn the highest score of any destination—city or island—for Friendliness. Meanwhile, Florence, Buenos Aires, Cape Town, San Francisco, and Vancouver continue dominating their respective regions. Sydney once again claims top honors among all cities for the eighth straight year.
1. Ubud, 82.5
2. Bangkok, 82.2
3. Hong Kong, 81.3
4. Chiang Mai, 80.9
5. Kyoto, 80.2
6. Singapore, 79.6
7. Shanghai, 75.9
8. Jaipur, 74.2
9. Tokyo, 72.9
10. Hanoi, 69
METHODOLOGY
Every year since 1988, a select sample of Condé Nast Traveler readers have taken the Readers' Choice Survey. In 2009, the questionnaire was available to all readers through a secure Web site. The final tabulations of 25,008 responses were done by Mediamark Research, Inc., of New York City.
Organization
Poll categories (Cities, Hotels, etc.) appear below, followed by the criteria for each. Questionnaires contained lists of candidates (individual cities, hotels, etc.), and write‐ins were allowed. Only candidates that received a required minimum number of responses were deemed eligible for an award.
Evaluation
Each candidate was rated, criterion by criterion, on a five‐point scale: excellent, very good, good, fair, poor. Criterion scores, which represent the percentage of respondents rating a candidate excellent or very good, were averaged to determine the final score; e.g., in the category of Islands, Maui's 90.1 is the average of its scores for Activities, Atmosphere/Ambience, Beaches, Friendliness, Lodging, Restaurants, and Scenery. Individual categories were rated on the following:
Airlines
Cabin Comfort
Cabin Service
Entertainment Options
Food/Beverages
Ticketing/Ground Services
Car Rental Agencies
Rates
Reliability of Fleet
Rental Locations
Service
Staff Efficiency
Vehicle Selection/Options
Cities
Atmosphere/Ambience
Culture/Sites
Friendliness
Lodging
Restaurants
Shopping
Cruise Lines
Activities/Facilities
Cabins
Crew/Service
Design/Layout
Food/Dining
Itineraries/Schedule
Shore Excursions
Islands
Activities
Atmosphere/Ambience
Beaches
Friendliness
Lodging
Restaurants
Scenery
Hotels
Food/Dining
Location
Overall Design
Rooms
Service
Resorts
Activities/Facilities
Food/Dining
Location
Overall Design
Rooms
Service
