Asia's Finest Hotels, the latest in our roster of publications, is a title that many of our sponsors have been anticipating with enthusiasm, as representing a timely step in view of the robust resurgence in tourism to Asia. Although the monetary earnings derived from tourism are largely 'invisible', in no other activity is the impact on an economy so diverse, widespread and readily discerned.
Tourism affects almost everyone, from shopkeepers to taxi-drivers, from jewellers to textile merchants, but nowhere more than on those engaged in the hospitality industry. Moreover, it is a truism that, whether holidaying or on business, all visitors view a comfortable, clean and welcoming hotel room as high among their priorities when choosing destinations gleaned from information that does not always clarify the relationship of quality to cost.
Asia's Finest Hotels is the handbook that will address many of these imponderables and make it easier for travellers to choose where to stay and to enjoy their chosen destination while they are there, hopefully to be put in that frame of mind conducive to their disgorging more of their dollars, to the benefit of all.
This will help to ensure that the unique qualities of top hotels will be kept at the forefront of the hospitality industry throughout the region, for an entire year, a key factor to success in these uncertain times.
During a history of more than 12 years engaged in Hong Kong media development, the Channel 1 Group has launched a series of successful commercial publications, all of them trailblazers in their particular segment of the business genre.
The one feature common to all our projects is that they continue to prove their worth in shelf space, day after day, month after month. The successful formula to which we subscribe in all our endeavours is maximum value for minimum outlay. So it is with Asia's Finest Hotels.
Bear in mind that this book is directed at the travelling public, at the hoteliers themselves and also at our sponsors. Not only does each of these groups have interests and preferences which are not always identical, but display within their ranks manifold priorities and desires that are varied, dissimilar and sometimes even contradictory.
Travellers' country of origin, social background, upbringing, favoured sports, recreational predilections and religious bent � all these determine their preferences and requirements when selecting hotels in which to spend their precious time.
Consequently, we have attempted to take all these factors into consideration when choosing the hotels for these pages, out of the thousands of competing, potentialcandidates. In some cases, we have had to make a decision based on such criteria as the availability of golf courses, tennis courts, surrounding gardens or the general ambience of the property, when the interior facilities may be no better than, or possibly not so spectacular as dozens of others.
Then there is the question of the hotel's proximity to shopping areas and the variety of items that are available for purchase, the local content or particular skills native to the region, which may appeal to the visitor and whether or not the prices are likely to be sufficiently attractive to warrant travellers spending time and money in exploring the markets where handicrafts of calibre are to be found. No-one appreciates having acquired an apparently unique object only to find on the return home that the Cambodian art treasure is a mass-produced product of some sweatshop in Birmingham or Wuhan and that could have been bought for a fraction of the cost in its country of origin, or at the local junk shop.
Food is always a thorny item and while many travellers are willing to be adventurous, others find the new and exciting to be just too much to swallow on a regular basis and prefer to have broad choices of cuisine available when their taste buds long for the comfort of the familiar, rather than the thrill of the novel. The types of cuisine offered, consequently have a distinct bearing on the broad appeal of any hotel.
In every case, therefore, it must be understood that there are no absolutes that mandate placing our choice as being above all others. To make this kind of decision is invidious in many instances, but that is the cross that every publisher must bear when balancing often indefinable criteria against the limitations of space and cost, because no collection of information, selected on the basis of taste and personal choice can ever be final or perfect in the eyes of every reader.
When making our selection of Asia's Finest Hotels we have not relied on the printed word, or on our own, extensive researches throughout the region, but on a multiplicity of sources, including informed feedback from experienced travellers and from hospitality professionals. Even so, all opinions are subjective and if you feel we are guilty of sins of omission, or commission, we will endeavour to address your concerns in future editions.
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