And they tell us lightning doesn’t strike twice. Well, last night at the British Museum, we had our second bolt from the blue in the space of a year. Mr & Mrs Smith was voted Favourite Travel Website in the Condé Nast Traveller Readers’ Travel Awards – for the second year in a row.
It was amazing enough to hear our name called out last year, but to have it happen again nearly made us fall off our chairs. So, we’d like to say a huge thank you to Traveller readers for voting for us, and to new editor Melinda Stevens for astonishing us all over again.
Since James Lohan and Tamara Heber-Percy set out hotel hunting nearly 10 years ago, we’ve strived to unearth the most stylish, unique and heartfelt hotels, places where a couple could run away to for a weekend and be confident they’d still be talking about their trip years later. We’ve gone from a handful of boutique retreats in the UK to a worldwide collection of around 1,000 hotels; we’ve moved from being a guidebook publisher to being a hotel booking site and travel club – and we don’t plan to stop there.
So (and now we’re welling up a bit) it’s absolutely gosh-darn fantastic to take home the plaque. Again.
It’s not just about us, though: congratulations to all the winners, who are featured in the October issue of Condé Nast Traveller which hits the shelves today. (The edition also features a pretty special Smith offer: 15 half-price Smith hotels in 15 dazzling destinations.) We’re thrilled to see a hefty handful of our favourite hotels on the leader board too. In fact, we’ve compiled a special collection of award-winning hotels and runners-up if you fancy seeing what all the fuss is about.
Congratulations to:
UK LEISURE HOTEL Babington House, Somerset
UK LEISURE HOTEL (RUNNER-UP) Chewton Glen, Hampshire
UK HOTEL SPA (RUNNER-UP) The Spa at Coworth Park, Berkshire
UK BUSINESS HOTEL (RUNNER-UP) Claridge’s, London
OVERSEAS HOTEL SPA The Nam Hai, Hoi An, Vietnam
DESTINATION SPA Como Shambhala Estate, Bali (pictured right)
OVERSEAS LEISURE HOTEL, AMERICAS (RUNNER-UP) Parrot Cay, Turks & Caicos
OVERSEAS LEISURE HOTEL, AMERICAS (RUNNER-UP) Saffire, Feycinet Peninsula, Tasmania
OVERSEAS BUSINESS HOTEL (RUNNER-UP) The Upper House, Hong Kong
And, of course, to the countless other Smith hotels that made the shortlists.
Now, where did I leave my champagne?
