1. Hyatt Centric Ginza Tokyo - Tokyo, Japan
It would take more space than we have here to exhaustively enumerate the relationships between Hyatt’s various sub-brands, but the short version is that Hyatt Centric is aimed at a younger generation of traveler — which implies a traveler with no less taste, but perhaps a tighter budget than the guests who frequent the Park Hyatts of the world. In Tokyo, however, one of the world’s capitals of high-end hospitality — and in Ginza in particular, an upscale shopping district of great renown — you should expect the Hyatt Centric Ginza to have more than a touch of luxury.
2. Hyatt Regency Hakone Resort and Spa - Hakone, Japan
Travelers to (and within) Japan know the Hyatt name means something special here. There’s the famous Park Hyatt in Tokyo, of course, and a number of fine Grand Hyatts all around the country. Located in Gora, a hot spring town at the foot of Mount Fuji, an hour and a half to the west of Tokyo, the Hyatt Regency Hakone is exceptional for being an international-style luxury hotel in the rural spa territory ordinarily reserved for Japan’s traditional inns.
3. Hyatt Regency Kyoto - Kyoto, Japan
Here’s a hotel that forces you to dispense with a couple of easy generalizations. The first is the idea that the big chains guarantee a dull experience — not a bad rule of thumb but one with many, many exceptions. And the second is the idea that in Japan, Tokyo is the center of all that’s modern and forward-thinking while Kyoto remains frozen in the feudal past. Again, true enough, to a point — but as the Hyatt Regency Kyoto proves, it’s a bit more complicated than that.
4. W15 Hanthana Estate Kandy - Kandy, Sri Lanka
Sri Lanka’s hospitality scene is blessed with plenty of variety in both landscape and style — longtime readers will know that it’s got some very fine modernist beachfront boutique hotels, but it’s also got something close to the polar opposite. W15 Hanthana Estate Kandy is set in the mountainous interior of the island, surrounded by verdant hillsides and tea plantations, and aesthetically it’s as pure an example of colonial-style elegance as you’re likely to experience, its bungalow-style buildings wrapped in verandas and columns, its guests ferried from the rail station to the estate in a robin’s-egg-blue vintage Land Rover.
5. Taj Fort Aguada Resort & Spa - Candolim, India
The first luxury hotel in Goa is still at it, under the banner of India’s most famous luxury-hotel brand: Taj Fort Aguada Resort & Spa, Goa. There’s no beating its setting, on over 40 acres of lush hillside gardens, overlooking both Sinquerim Beach and the ramparts of the 16th-century Portuguese-built Fort Aguada. And while the Taj shows plentiful Portuguese influence of its own — a stylistic thread that’s inseparable from Goan architecture — it’s far more elegant, even delicate, than the word “fort” might imply.
6. Rosewood Beijing - Beijing, China
If you’re skeptical of a sparkling new hotel that’s being billed as an “urban village,” try to reserve your judgment for just a moment. It’s true that the hoteliers behind the Rosewood Beijing get a bit high-concept at times — what we’d call a concierge, the hotel refers to as “Rosewood curators.” But look past the branding exercises and you’ll find an exceedingly professional, exceptionally well-executed hotel, and one that’s packed with local character.
7. One96 - Hong Kong Island, Hong Kong
Having a whole hotel floor to yourself is a luxury that’s usually reserved for the high-rollers in the penthouse suite. Not at One96 in Hong Kong. At this super-sleek boutique hotel, housed in an eye-catching modernist building that’s midway between the Central and Sheung Wan districts, the glass exterior mimics the texture of undulating waves – every suite occupies a whole level. So you don’t have to share those panoramic city skyline views with the adjacent room. And you won’t have to hear the neighbor’s sound system through the bedroom wall. And you don’t have to endure that awkward wait for the elevator with perfect strangers — no, you’ll summon the lift from your private “lift lobby.”
8. The Jervois - Hong Kong Island, Hong Kong
While "funky" and "bohemian" might have become the new hospitality watchwords, the dream of glossy, clean-lined modernism is alive in Hong Kong. You know Christian Liaigre for his work in Europe, especially Paris, but his elegant, focused interiors work is on display at the Jervois, a high-end, high-rise, high-design boutique hotel in Sheung Wan, one of the island’s most desirable districts — seemingly hidden in plain sight, surrounded by many of the city’s finest shops and restaurants.
9. The Murray, Hong Kong, a Niccolo Hotel - Hong Kong Island, Hong Kong
It’s rare that a brand new hotel rockets straight to the top of Hong Kong’s hospitality scene, and rarer still, for obvious reasons, that it’s converted from a late-Sixties landmark government building by the eminent London-based architects Foster + Partners. But, as is by now clear, the Murray is no ordinary hotel. The original structure is oddly well-suited to luxury-hotel use — its recessed, angled windows keep direct sunlight to a minimum, which helps to cool the rooms. And Foster + Partners made significant improvements as well, and not just in interior design — they opened up the ground level to street life, for one thing, a concern that the original government ministry didn’t share.
10. Alila Manggis - Manggis, Indonesia
It’s difficult to say just what is special about Alila Manggis, as many of its attributes could justifiably be claimed by dozens of other hotels. Bali is not exactly an obscure destination (though this East Bali location is a bit wilder), and the idea of a modern hotel with traditional indigenous architecture is nothing new. And heaven knows there’s nothing revolutionary about a tropical resort hotel that promises “pampering” courtesy of its signature spa.
11. TRUNK HOTEL - Tokyo, Japan
From American blue jeans to French pastry to Italian coffee — increasingly, Tokyo is where other countries go to see their local arts and crafts practiced at the highest possible level. The youth-oriented, high-design, hyper-social boutique hotel certainly didn’t originate in Japan, but again, it just might be in Tokyo that it finds its most perfect expression. TRUNK Hotel is the local version of something like the Ace Hotel Shoreditch or the Wythe in Williamsburg, but it’s no mere copy — as is so often the case in Japan, what sets it apart is the sheer quality of its execution, which is in turn the product of a fanatical attention to detail.
12. Park Hotel Tokyo - Tokyo, Japan
Like many Tokyo hotels, the Park Hotel occupies part of a mixed-use skyscraper; in this case, ten uppermost floors of the Shiodome Media Tower, right in the heart of downtown. Architecturally, the Park Hotel is rather unique — the core of the building has been hollowed out, so that its 273 rooms all face outward.
Hero image : Taj Fort Aguada Resort & Spa
