London Hotels Insight provides up-to-date, independent advice for your perfect stay in London. We research guest feedback, meet management and identify hotels at the top of their game.
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Hotel 41
We’ve been banging on about the importance of WiFi for quite a while now – and it’s pleasing to see that nowadays almost all the top-rated London hotels on TripAdvisor provide free WiFi as a matter of routine. There is now added statistical evidence in favour of this essential hotel amenity (which, as we argued [...]
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Checklist-based star rating systems were historically the natural way to rank and classify hotels. When the Savoy opened in London in 1889 it was seen as the ultimate luxury hotel: features like electric lifts and individual bathrooms were a genuine novelty and the epitome of indulgence. As competitors in the next century caught up or [...]
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There’s good service and then there’s great service. I’ve been doing a bit of thinking about the difference between the two. Great service doesn’t have to require a huge effort. A concierge arranging to pick your car up – when you left it in Frankfurt and need it in London – is great service; but [...]
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I’ve had some truly horrible meals in hotels. After all, hoteliers know they’ve got a captive market – people who are too tired, lazy or jet-lagged to want to head out to a restaurant; so the quality of the food may often be compromised even in otherwise decent hotels. Bland ‘international’ cuisine that’s low on [...]
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I recently visited Hotel 41 where I met the General Manager of this luxury boutique hotel in Victoria – Malcolm Hendry – as well as the MD of Red Carnation Hotels (and Hotelier of the Year 2009) Jonathan Raggett. I wanted to learn how Hotel 41 had achieved the position of being rated the best [...]
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London hotels have contrasting views on this particular topic. Flagship hotel restaurants are often seen as a selling point. This especially applies to luxury hotels, with Alain Ducasse at the Dorchester and Gordon Ramsay at Art Deco gem Claridge’s notable examples, along with Galvin at Windows (Hilton on Park Lane) and Apsley’s at the Lanesborough. [...]
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I get rather tired of the ‘full English breakfast’. Apart from the fact that hash browns and baked beans are not really traditional, I also find that many hotels don’t serve the equally traditional kipper or bloater. There’s nothing like the gorgeous smokiness of a proper kipper to start the day properly. But where can [...]
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As someone who blogs obsessively about London hotels, I’m sometimes asked by hoteliers if starting a blog makes business sense for them too. My answer is “yes, but only if you are fully committed”. The web is littered with abandoned blogs and the world certainly doesn’t need more of them. What then defines a good [...]
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A recent survey conducted by J.D. Power and Associates of 53,000 travellers found free WiFi to be the most desired hotel amenity bar none. It’s especially striking that according to the survey, free WiFi was seen as more important than anything else at a hotel – including factors that we’d normally consider essential like a [...]
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Red Carnation Hotels – the company famous for its 12 service standards – continues to exert an iron grip over the leading London hotels according to the current TripAdvisor rankings. It now has all of the top 3 spots. Number 3 is the group’s intimate Egerton House Hotel, which we visited last year when it [...]
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The Goring was once known to be the Queen Mother’s favourite hotel. But for me its bigger claim to fame is that it’s probably one of London’s last remaining family-run hotels still holding its own among the elite. It has a particularly strong reputation for handling romantic occasions. Indeed the hotel is managed by Jeremy [...]
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Dogs are apparently Man’s best friend – so if your dog (or cat, rabbit, guinea pig…) is your best buddy, you won’t want to leave it home alone whilst you’re on holiday. Enter London’s top pet-friendly hotels… The Milestone Hotel The Milestone – a 5 star Kensington hotel – provides a complete range of ‘Pet [...]
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The appeal of London isn’t just the wonderful attractions of the city itself, but also all the amazing places just a short journey away. We’ve already sung the merits of Paris and Brighton in this regard. Windsor, just 21 miles west of the capital, is another exceptional day-trip. Home to stunning parks, a proper palace [...]
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The UK’s “Hotel Catey” Awards – the Oscars of the hospitality industry – took place recently in London to reward excellence in 2009. The deserved winner of the coveted “Hotelier of the Year” award was Mr Jonathan Raggett, Managing Director of Red Carnation Hotels. We’ve often featured his company on this blog due to the [...]
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In part 1 of this double feature, we mentioned how Red Carnation Hotel Collection goes to extraordinary lengths to elicit guest feedback by organising “focus group dinners” with previous complainants. Having attended one such event a few weeks ago as an observer, I witnessed this at first hand and wanted to share my findings with [...]
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We’ve featured Red Carnation Hotel Collection repeatedly for one reason: consistently good guest reviews across all its luxury London hotels. All 6 of the company’s London hotels are currently in the top 22 on TripAdvisor, with 5 of the top 11 London hotels (and all offer free WiFi). There have been various articles on this [...]
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