For immediate release
October 16, 2008
The readers of Condé Nast Traveler have named Victoria, British Columbia’s, Hotel Grand Pacific the top hotel in the country in the magazine’s 21st Annual Readers’ Choice Awards. The awards are derived from the Condé Nast Traveler Readers’ Choice Survey, the largest independent poll of consumers’ preferences. Over 32,000 readers voted this year.
The Hotel Grand Pacific, a member of the Preferred collection of independent hotels (www.preferredhotels.com), is a luxury hotel situated on Victoria’s picturesque Inner Harbour and within strolling distance of Old Town’s unique shops, galleries and cafés. Guest rooms and public areas command wonderful views of the harbour, the city’s Old Town, the Gorge Waterway and the Olympic Mountains of Washington State. Hotel amenities include an award-winning restaurant, the Grand Pacific Athletic Club and the Spa at the Grand.
Victoria’s Hotel Grand Pacific debuts at the top of a list of Canadian properties that also includes the Auberge Saint-Antoine, Quebec City, in second place, and Vancouver Island’s Sooke Harbour House in third.
Victoria was also honoured – sharing the position of “third best city in the Americas” with Quebec City. Vancouver Island was selected as the best Island in North America.
“This is a very meaningful award”, says Reid James, General Manager of the Hotel Grand Pacific, “coming, as it does, at the end of an extraordinarily challenging year for the tourism industry. We are delighted to receive this commendation from such a discriminating group of travelers who recognize excellence in the tourism industry on a worldwide basis.”
“These awards celebrate the destinations, lodgings, and modes of transportation that manage to exceed our expectations,” said Condé Nast Traveler Editor in Chief Klara Glowczewska. “The Readers’ Choice Awards, with over 32,000 readers voting, are a credit to the worldly expertise of our readers-passionate travelers for whom no island is too remote, no city too challenging, and no hotel too untested.”
Every year since 1988, a select sample of Condé Nast Traveler readers have taken the Readers’ Choice Survey. In 2008, the questionnaire was available to all readers through a secure Web site. Each candidate was rated, criterion by criterion, on a five-point scale: excellent, very good, good, fair, poor. Criterion scores, which represent the percentage of respondents rating a candidate excellent or very good, were averaged to determine the final score-e.g., in the category of Hotels, the Hotel Grand Pacific’s 92.0 is the average of its scores for Food/Dining, Location, Overall Design, Rooms and Service. The complete results of the awards can be found in the November issue of Condé Nast Traveler, on newsstands October 21st, or on the magazine’s website at
cntraveler.com.
For more information about the Hotel Grand Pacific, 463 Belleville Street, on Victoria’s Inner Harbour, visit www.hotelgrandpacific.com