Here we go again. Another year, another bizarre list from Tripadvisor. The world's largest travel companion platform has announced the winners of its annual Travellers' Choice Best of the Best Hotel Awards, celebrating this year's highest-rated hotels worldwide according to the platform's global users.
Of course, preference for one hotel over another is largely a matter of personal taste, but if the flowery, French-inspired Hotel Colline de France in Gramado, Brazil is the best hotel in the world, the ostentatious Toulson Court in Scarborough is the best hotel of Great Britain. B&B or the Resident Covent Garden are top hotels, then it's time for me to hang up my room key and check out.
Do you use Tripadvisor? I have to admit that I don't do that, except very occasionally to check whether a hotel I know little about is broadly acceptable or not. Positive reviews indicate that a place is well run, but the opinions of countless strangers who don't even reveal their real names are hard to really trust and what they seem to love, I might hate and vice versa.
They certainly love Resident Covent Garden. The hard-to-spot entrance to the UK's best hotel is sandwiched between a food and tobacco kiosk and a branch of Greggs on the corner of Strand and Bedford Street, leading into Covent Garden. I've never liked the Strand, a bleak, unattractive thoroughfare rushing towards Trafalgar Square, although Covent Garden is of course an excellent base for a central London hotel.
In terms of appearance, there's nothing memorable about the Resident. Gray is the predominant color: a gray lobby, gray hallways, square bedrooms with gray walls and gray curtains without any personality, apart from a bedspread, a few blue and red pillows on the beds and exactly the same abstract print above. If the hotel were judged on appearance alone, it certainly couldn't be considered the best in Britain, even if there were differences in taste - the idea is just too far-fetched to contemplate.
The same goes for the facilities: this is a hotel with no restaurant, no breakfast room, no gym, no lounge, only 57 bedrooms ranging from not large to very small in size. All rooms are the same, each with an integrated mini-kitchen (microwave, sink with Brita filter tap, kettle, Nespresso machine, tea and coffee); smart gray marble bathroom; high-quality pocket spring bed with good bedding; Smart TV; and a round dining/work table with two chairs and an Anglepoise lamp by Paul Smith. My King room had a wall of windows overlooking the Beach. I used a chair as a bedside table and regretted the row of plugs and sockets that marred my view of the opposite wall.
Can this really be the best hotel in all of Britain? Does charm, character, history and a beautiful location count for nothing? As for value, although hotel standards, including cleanliness, are high and hotels in London are more expensive than ever, there are other similar properties in the area that have a lower price and even Tripadvisor fans rate the price slightly lower for the price. money. However, I think two elements (obviously none of the above) elevated the Resident to this pinnacle and one of them, the staff, is impressive.
The first reason may lie in the hotel's involvement with Tripadvisor. If you look at the website, you will see that the homepage immediately conveys its high ranking; If you look at the listing on Tripadvisor, you will see that every review posted receives an appreciative response from the hotel. Some hotels care more about Tripadvisor and its algorithms than others; those that do, like the Resident, tend to get more reviews and score higher.
If the hotel itself is dull and rather dull, the secret of its success is in a smiling line in the lobby: the front-of-house team, who add warmth, personality and a genuine desire to help to an unusually high degree . David Orr, the CEO of Resident Hotels, has extensive experience injecting the human touch into simple, affordable hotels, starting in 1999 with City Inns which became Mint Hotels, and in 2020 launching Resident (formerly Nadler) in Covent Garden, Soho, Victoria, Kensington, Liverpool and in summer Edinburgh.
Patricia Segurola, the ebullient general manager, leads a team that is not only immediate, reassuring and genuinely friendly, but also a wealth of information about London - culture, nightlife, restaurants, bars, shops and so on - and even an in-house "insider" exam during their training. Most of the guests are tourists, many from the US, but the team of 13 people does its best to make them, as the name of the hotel suggests, feel like residents during their stay and to make up for the fact that it hotel does not have its own restaurant.
Every early evening, Segurola hosts free drinks in the lobby, where guests can meet and chat. "Some have no plans to visit London," she tells me. "If they want, we can help them make one." If Segurola ever leaves the Resident (she's been there since the beginning), she can always get a job as a concierge at the Ritz. They don't wear fancy uniforms and gold keys on their lapels, but the staff here is truly impressive. "It's all in the recruiting," Segurola said. "It's so important to choose people who can listen, communicate and really care. Then we can train them."
There's a quick breakfast delivery menu from Soho Coffee Co for those like me who are too lazy to use their mini kitchen - and if you don't want what's on the list, they'll go and get you what you do want. Someone at the front desk heard me muttering while I was filling out the form that there was no croissant on the menu. I only ordered coffee to be delivered at 8am, but when it arrived, miraculously, there were also two delicious croissants from a local pastry shop. Such gestures make great hotels, but the best in the country? I do not think so.
Fiona Duncan was a guest at the Covent Garden resident (020 3146 1790), which offers double deals from £309, excluding breakfast.
