ROMSO Cyprus Knowledge Base

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The Leading Hotels of the World is a global alliance of luxury hotels, resorts and spas from different operators. The Hotel Alliance offers its members services in the areas of marketing, sales, consulting and inspections. First and foremost, it is an award for particularly high quality standards of the connected houses.

History
Leading Hotels of the World, Ltd. was founded in 1928 by a group of European hoteliers, initially called The Luxury Hotels of Europe and Egypt with a total of 38 houses and 9000 rooms and suites, including the Hotel Negresco in Nice. The aim was to jointly market the hotels in the important North American market. In New York City, Hotel Representative, Inc. (HRI) was founded. In the late 1960s, HRI represented 70 houses, but exclusively in Europe.

In 1971, The Leading Hotels of the World, Ltd. (LHW) was founded with headquarters in New York City. There is a network of 23 offices worldwide, the umbrella company became Hotel Representative AG in Lucerne. It opened up more and more to hotels outside Europe in the following two decades. By the end of the 1980s, the number of members tripled. Today, they call themselves the world’s leading alliance of luxury hotels. German-language leading media such as Der Spiegel, Süddeutsche Zeitung or Neue Zürcher Zeitung regularly mention the brand in articles of the travel resorts as a synonym or example for hotels in the luxury segment.

The company is currently (as of 2020) led by Andrea Kracht, President of Hotel Representative AG and Chairman, and Shannon Knapp as President and CEO of The Leading Hotels of the World, Ltd.

Enterprises

Leading Hotels
The Leading Hotels of the World is a hotel collection and brand of five star and five star superior hotels. Officially, this collection includes “over 375 hotels in 75 countries” (as of 2019). After the new addition, the houses are tested anonymously on average every 18 months.

The Leading Small Hotels of the World
With The Leading Small Hotels of the World, the company introduced the first brand expansion in 1999, which also covers smaller upscale hotels (such as family businesses, traditional country hotels, boutique hotels). However, the brand expansion has since been abandoned and all Leading Small Hotels have been transferred to a regular membership of Leading Hotels of the World. There is no connection between The Leading Hotels of the World and the competing brand Small Luxury Hotels of the World (short SLH).

Leading Spas
Founded in 2004, Leading Spas was the world’s first seal of quality for five-star luxury hotel spa and wellness offerings. It defined internationally applicable quality criteria for a spa. The certification program contained over 200 criteria. The label featured about 100 hotels