Condé Nast Traveler has just created an award that no longer celebrates innovation, but rather consistency over thirty years. The Parisian luxury hotel is among the handful of European properties to have received it. That says a lot about the hospitality industry.
A category created to recognize what stands the test of time
Hotel rankings have long been driven by the thrill of the new. Each season, a new property would replace the previous one, and excellence was measured by how recently it had opened. Condé Nast Traveler’s creation of a Triple Crown Award—the first edition of which has just been presented—quietly overturns this logic. The award is reserved exclusively for properties that have appeared, over the past thirty years, on the magazine’s three leading lists: the Hot List, the Gold List, and the Readers’ Choice Awards.
To earn all three of these accolades, a hotel must have won over—in turn—editors, juries, and readers over the course of three decades. Only a handful of European hotels have achieved this. The Royal Monceau – Raffles Paris is one of them.
What Consistency Demands of a Home
Maintaining such a status over such a long period of time imposes a challenge that is rarely mentioned: the ability to reinvent oneself without losing one’s identity. Located in the 8th arrondissement, the Royal Monceau has weathered several eras of design trends, evolving from the codes of the classic luxury hotel to a more contemporary interpretation, grounded in art. The hotel is described as one of the most modern in the capital, which, for an establishment that has been a fixture in the rankings for so long, is less of a compliment than a feat.
That is where the value of this award lies. It recognizes a quality that is almost invisible in the hospitality industry—because it cannot be captured in a photograph—namely, consistency. It is not about a single season’s performance, but about keeping a promise over the long term.
| Triple Crown Award, first edition (Condé Nast Traveler). Criteria: having been featured on the Hot List, the Gold List, and the Reader’s Choice Awards for thirty years. Property: Le Royal Monceau – Raffles Paris, 8th arrondissement of Paris. Scope of the award: best hotels in Europe and the United Kingdom. |
A Sign for the Parisian Hotel Industry
At a time when a considerable number of prestigious houses are opening and undergoing renovations in Paris, the emergence of a “timelessness award” is no small matter. It suggests that the market has reached a point of maturity where the focus is shifting away from simply opening new properties toward what stands the test of time. Novelty remains a selling point; longevity has become another—one that is harder to achieve.
One question remains unanswered by this distinction: Is consistency something that can be passed on? A luxury hotel endures for thirty years thanks to its staff, its traditions, and the history of the place. The next decade will reveal whether this continuity will continue, or whether it already belongs to a certain ideal of the hospitality industry.
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