lastminute.com, an online travel and leisure retailer, published a unique set of data that reveals the cities with the highest rated hotels in the world according to customer reviews. Following the analysis of search data and lastminute.com’s own review database, the most searched for destinations in the world are in fact, not the best rated when it comes to hotels. In the United Kingdom, Manchester hotels ranked the highest in the country, leaving London and Edinburgh behind.
Although London and Edinburgh top the charts for the most popular cities in the United Kingdom according to the number of searches, Manchester, alongside Barcelona, is one of two European cities that held a spot in the rankings for most searched for and highest rated hotels.
The research ranks cities around the world based on average hotel reviews. Taking into account a number of different factors that contribute to an exceptional hotel experience, lastminute.com provided a list of ten cities per continent with the highest customer ratings. These factors include location, comfort, room, service, breakfast, cleanliness, WiFi, value for money, bar and beverages, and amenities.
Across all continents, the cities that travellers have rated highest are different to the cities that they are searching for when they book. Cape Town is the only city to take the top spot for both popularity and hotel experience while South America has the highest number of cities that appear in both categories including Bogota, Rio de Janeiro and Buenos Aires. Some other cities that performed well in both categories include Abu Dhabi, Boston, Chicago and Kyoto.
This data brought to light an interesting insight that the best rated hotel experiences aren’t necessarily found in the most visited cities, as travellers tend to expect. This trend is a sign that popular destinations need to up their game if they want to keep up visitors’ expectations.
The research also provided insights on the best time of the year to go and visit the cities with highest hotel rankings as well as top attractions for each of them. The full list is available at lastminute.com website.
