Focus on: how RG selects the selected hotels
How do I select what hotels to stay at and feature in my blog?
M asked me the other day: ”How do you decide what hotels to feature on your blog and which ones that don’t make it? What are your criteria?” I realized I don’t know. To me it is a given when staying at a hotel if it has that unique something something that makes it part of the selected few but at the same time I started to think about what do I mean with unique and how do I go about my selection and this is what I landed at.
Research, a lot of research
My selection process starts already when I do my research. I scan, search and read a lot before booking my stays which means that very few hotels are thrown out when I am there irl. Luckily these days it is fairly easy to get a good insight into what a hotel is all about through all the different available channels. I have listed some of my favorite sources of inspiration here.
Another thing I always do is that I stay at all the hotels I feature here and I always pay for the stay myself (ok, sometimes M also pitches in :-)). I know! It is an expensive hobby but I love hotels, I love staying at them and I love sharing my favorites with others. That I stay and pay is all about credibility. I want you to be able to trust the quality stamp of Selected by RG and this is my way to make sure you can.
Chains vs independents
Since my thing is uniqueness I must admit that chain hotels have a steeper hill to climb to make it into Selected by RG. The reason is maybe obvious since generic usually means you are out (and the same goes for those over the top opulent luxury hotels which have never done it for me (I also don’t have the wallet for it)). But with this said, there are plenty of chains that have managed to crack the code and realized that just because you are running a chain of hotels doesn’t mean all the properties have to look the same. Some of the best examples are Ace Hotels, Ess Hotels, Hoxton Hotels, Max Brown, Brøchner Hotels, V Hotels and Nobis.
With independents I am usually already onboard since if there is only one hotel the unique box is already kind of ticked, like Bühelwirt, La Scuola, Ullr House, TypeO and Talldungen.
Easier for smaller hotels
Just like I mentioned above regarding chain hotels, big hotels have a similar challenge. It is more difficult to make a large hotel unique. If you are running a small establishment with only 6 rooms it is usually easier to boost the unique factor. But, once again, big doesn’t have to mean generic. There are hotels that have cracked this code like The Standard, W, Line and Freehand but it is difficult. That is why the majority of the hotels featured here are on the smaller scale. And to me small is the new luxury, like Ett Hem, Spoor 62, Breac House, Villa Arnica, Masseria Moroseta and Borgo Eibn,
Standing out
And when zooming in on the unique part there has to be something that makes a hotel stand out. Something that only this one hotel has and no other. It could be an interesting past like Dexamens that used to be wine storage facility or Furillen that was a concrete plant, a crazy idea like placing a number of tipis and vintage caravans in the desert like El Cosmico, a magical view like Miramonti, exciting architecture like Ion Adventure or My Arbor, eclectic design like The Norrmans, sustainability heroes like Stelor or top notch service like Vigilius and 1477 Reichhalter.
As you can see the list of what I see as unique is fairly long which is great since it means that many hotels can be a Selected by RG hotel. :-)
With this I hope you understand more about my process so you feel you can trust the quality of ”my” hotels.
Do you have any unique hotels that haven’t made it here yet? Please write me.
/RG
