Colin Nagy | September 25, 2024
The Major Prize Comedown Edition
On the Michelin star curse, the "Best Hotels," and the pitfalls of recognition.
Colin here. Recently, the second edition of ‘The World's 50 Best Hotels’ occurred in London. It was quite a shindig, with all the predictable glamor of a room full of high-end hoteliers. It's hard to be truly objective with such things, but the winners were generally hotels that strive for that extra 10 percent when it comes to aesthetic perfection, hospitality, and anticipatory service.
One of the coolest things I heard last year was that, after being awarded the top prize, Passalacqua, a wonderful hotel on Lake Como, took the metaphorical phone off the hook. They didn't answer requests from bold-faced named celebs, nor did they let oligarchs book out the place. They tried their best to avoid the limelight. This was the correct strategy. Many of the hotels that win accolades like this then have million-dollar problems: their guest base rapidly changes from die-hard fans to lookie-loos who just want to check off their list of where’s hot now. Suppliers suddenly have leverage to charge more. Your staff get poached quickly.