The Business Traveler North America Award Winners 2023: Hotels & Properties

North America’s Best Business Hotel Brand

Best Hotel Brand for Conventions

Best Brand for Extended Stays

Hyatt; Hyatt House

Hyatt House / Photo: Courtesy of Hyatt House

Business travel bookings are up 36 percent from last year and at least 86 percent recovered from pandemic slowdowns, according to Hyatt CEO Mark Hoplamazian, who announced second-quarter results at headquarters in August. The news comes as Hyatt introduces Homes & Hideaways by World of Hyatt. The new short-term vacation rental platform will feature private homes and remote hideaways in the United States, from beachfront escapes to mountainside ski chalets.

Hyatt House, introduced in 2006, is also in place as an extended-stay product. And the brand is in expansion mode, with a new property in Melbourne, Australia.

Guest rooms come as studios and one-bedrooms with a full kitchen and spacious living room. The property will contain the brand’s trademark H Bar, a central gathering spot for breakfast, cocktails and evening presentations.

Hyatt currently runs a portfolio of 1,250 hotels and all-inclusive properties under a variety of brands in 76 countries across six continents. To that end, meetings and conventions in Hyatt locations are a key piece of the pie. This year, Hyatt introduced a new convenience for meeting planners: Together by Hyatt’s new Event Experience Guides collect all the answers in one place. Planners now have an interactive, easy-to-navigate online platform with resources such as menus, sustainability practices, well-being experiences, event space options, guest room details and more in a visually led UX.

For those looking to redeem World of Hyatt points and relax at a Hyatt vacation property, Hyatt’s recently opened Secrets Tulum Resort & Beach Club in Mexico may match the occasion. The 300-room adults-only all-inclusive resort has it all: the beach, the location, the service and amenities—and the brand name to back it all up.

World’s Best Business Hotel Brand

Four Seasons

Four Seasons / Photo: Courtesy of Four Seasons

Four Seasons seems to create its own destination, its own world wherever it goes—be that
the beaches of the Indian Ocean, the frenetic Las Vegas Strip, or in the shadow of the Eiffel Tower. The name has meant not only luxury, but also comfort and consistency. It is in the service from a staff that knows your name. Security and privacy are also well mastered at Four Seasons hotels, which have been catering to dignitaries for decades. New alignments with credit card companies, new locations—in Morocco, Egypt and Mexico—new yacht offerings, private jet vacation programs, and a series of residential developments in desirable places keep Four Seasons on the move—catering to the special needs of the business traveler wherever that travel may be.

Best Hotel Loyalty Program

Marriott

Marriott / Photo: Courtesy of Marriott

Earning Marriott Bonvoy rewards is like breathing air. In fact, Marriott has six co-branded credit cards—each with its own welcome reward and portfolio of benefits. It is impossible not to stack up Bonvoy points and then keep earning through Marriott’s tireless campaigns offering ways to maximize those gains with multipliers and incentives. And Marriott Bonvoy points are versatile. Business travelers may rack them up with hotel stays and groceries, but spending those points is like entering an adult candy store. They can be converted into airline flights, spent in a luxury spa, or savored at a Michelin-starred restaurant. Box seats at a critical sports game? Done. Surf lessons in Bali, a meditation retreat in India? Marriott Bonvoy points are not points. They are gateways to realizing dreams.

Best Golf Resort

Gleneagles

Gleneagles / Photo: Courtesy of Jacob Sjoman

If Scotland is the best country worldwide for pursuing the Royal and Ancient Game, Gleneagles, in Perthshire, is its best golf resort. The golf includes three of the top courses in Scotland (as well as the nine-hole Wee Course and a PGA National Academy). James Braid designed The King’s and The Queen’s layouts back in 1919 with splashes of steep-faced, revetted bunkers and holes frolicking through hills, gorse, hollows and dells across a heathland landscape. Jack Nicklaus’ PGA Centenary Course—a wide, brawny American-style parkland design—has hosted both the Ryder and Solheim cups. After golf, pretend you’re Jay Gatsby in the American Bar; take afternoon tea in the Glendevon (site of a G8 summit); or sup at Michelin-starred Andrew Fairlie.

Nongolfers can choose between riding, fishing, shooting, falconry, off-road driving, lawn games, a visit to the spa and fitness center, or other familiar and/or eclectic activities. End each full and perfect day in richly appointed rooms and country lodges featuring artwork, fireplaces, soaking tubs and leather club chairs, where you can demand your family call you “laird” or “lady”—as you deserve for bringing them here.

Best Private Club Brand

Soho House

Soho House / Photo: Courtesy of Cristina Fisher

To make a private club work, it needs a certain alchemy— desirable locations, an engaged community and a little magic. This is a formula that Nick Jones sensed when he founded Soho House in 1995 atop his Cafe Boheme restaurant in London’s Soho. Now after almost 30 years and with more than 40 locations, Jones’ mission of creating a place for “people to meet each other and have fun” is a dream fulfilled. At the end of 2022, it was estimated that Soho House had more than 162,000 members, a 32-percent gain from the previous year. Expansion efforts have brought new houses online— with Portland and São Paulo to close out 2023. Even with all that demand, thanks to the application and vetting process, members can still be assured they sit alongside like-minded creative thinkers.

Best Coworking Brand

Soho Works

Soho Works / Photo: Courtesy of Sean Litchfield

While Soho House has long been a de facto daytime office for digitally nomadic entrepreneurs, sometimes it just feels awkward to crack open that laptop in a space truly meant for socializing. Plus, screen time after 6 p.m. is against house rules. That’s where Soho Works enters the chat. Members and nonmembers in creative fields can apply for lounge, desk and office options, with all the amenities and aesthetics of the Soho House brand but in a dedicated work environment. Just like its sister club, there is a calendar of events focusing on leadership and learning. Varying membership tiers permit guests, after-hours access or the benefits of a Soho Friends add-on, which allows the booking of bedrooms. Thank you, Soho Works, for reminding us business doesn’t always mix with pleasure.

Best Wellness Resort

Joali Being

Joali Being, Maldives / Photo: Courtesy of Joali Being

At Joali Being, the Maldives’ first well-being island, self-care begins with a flight above the sparkling cerulean sea. Upon reaching Bodufushi island, guests meet with experts for a guided and integrative lifestyle assessment. Doctors and travelers collaborate on a customized wellness itinerary that’s rooted in the palm-fringed property’s four core well-being pillars: mind, skin, microbiome and energy.

Joali Being’s in-house team of naturopaths, therapists, nutritionists, herbalists and tea sommeliers fuse ancient wisdom and modern science across myriad transformational spaces. A hydrotherapy center lets guests unwind via sensory deprivation, a salt inhalation room and hammam. Multisensory healing includes a sound therapy space and therapist-designed sound path. At Aktar’s herbal center, specialists help travelers naturally address mind and body concerns via herbs, spices and essential oils.
Self-care extends to all 68 thatch-roof villas and bungalows. Accommodations include well-being bars, private sea-view pools and meditative musical instruments. Cuisine takes an Earth-inspired approach, too, with nutritionist-selected fare that’s both healthy and delectable.

Tranquil surroundings, from a powder-sugar beach to a thick indigenous forest, are essential to guest transformation. These resources are also highly protected. Joali Being hosts one of three Maldives turtle conservation sanctuaries, and runs reef restoration programs, a coral nursery and regular tree-planting sessions.

Best Overall Global Sustainability Initiative

Rosewood

Rosewood / Photo: Courtesy of Rosewood

At each of its luxury hotels and resorts that dot the Americas, Europe, the Middle East and Asia-Pacific, Rosewood Hotel Group spotlights circular hospitality, an ethos simultaneously supporting environmental sustainability and economic growth. With its 2023 global sustainability initiative, Rosewood Impacts, the hotel group announced intentions to reach 100-percent carbon neutrality by 2050, as well as goals to eliminate all guest-facing single-use plastics; divert 70 percent of waste from landfills and incineration; and reduce energy and water usage by 25 percent, all within the next two years. According to Mehvesh Mumtaz Ahmed, Rosewood Hotel Group’s vice president of social impact, plans to reach these milestones are well underway.

Across Rosewood, single-use plastic toiletry bottles have been replaced by their larger, refillable counterparts, and Rosewood São Paulo is free of single-use plastics in most areas. Some Rosewood properties have invested in glass crushers that convert glass waste into sand to create and maintain artificial beaches, while properties such as Kona Village, A Rosewood Resort (which opened last summer) run on 100-percent renewable energy. Coral Reefs: A Citizen Science Program, Rosewood Baha Mar’s partnership with the Bahamas Reef Environment Educational Foundation, immerses guests in coral reef conservation and restoration efforts, even allowing them to adopt and name their own coral, a unique opportunity aimed at encouraging guests to consider the environmental impact that even one individual can catalyze.