Floriana’s Hotel Phoenicia has been rated Europe’s eighth best hotel by a study carried out on the opinions of over 160,000 users of the expedia.com travel website.
The hotel was also rated 43rd in the world, according to the Expedia Insiders’ Select 2008 list, out of over 30,000 hotels and resorts assessed by the exercise. The Phoenicia was given an overall score of 95.25; only hotels with scores of 85 and over were included in the "Select" list.
The website, arguably the world’s largest travel-related website, says it compiled its list by using a weighted mathematical formula. This includes the collection of hundreds of thousands of hotel reviews (160,000 new ones last year alone) created by Expedia travellers who recently and verifiably stayed at the property within the last six months; and a value rating determined by comparing hotels within the same star-rating and geographical region to identify hotels that deliver "notable value for the experience they offer".
Expedia.com boasts it hosts more traveller reviews than any other online travel site, and handles millions of travel transactions each year.
Expedia’s list ranges from boutique to chain hotels in a variety of small, mid-sized and large destinations across the world. Voted the world’s best overall hotel was the Sofitel Chicago Water Tower in Chicago, Illinois; Europe’s best was The Knight Residence in Edinburgh, Scotland and the world’s top resort was the JW Marriott Cancun Resort & Spa in Cancun, Mexico
The rating is undoubtedly good news for the historical hotel’s new owners, Heuston Hospitality.
The Irish hotels operators purchased the 136-bedroom property from Starman UK, a joint venture Starwood Capital Group and international investment bank Lehman Brothers Holdings. The latter had acted as the government’s adviser on the sale of Maltacom.
Europe’s top 10 hotels
1. Knight Residence, Edinburgh
2. Grand Hotel Amrath, Amsterdam
3. Hotel Adlon Kempinski, Berlin
4. Hotel Stein,
Salzburg
5. Room Mate Migueletes, Granada
6. Sofia Plaza,
Sofia
7. Hotel Grande Bretagne,
Athens
8. Hotel Phoenicia,
Malta
9. First Hotel G,
Gothenburg
10. Sofitel Strasbourg
Source: Expedia.com