The Best Hotel in the World: A $56-a-Night Guesthouse in Wales?

Cancel that all-inclusive holiday in the Seychelles: a North Wales guesthouse has been voted by global travelers as the world's best for service, according to the travel website Tripadvisor.

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Cancel that all-inclusive holiday in the Seychelles: a North Wales guesthouse has been voted by global travelers as the world’s best for service, according to the travel website Tripadvisor.

The service at Llandudno’s Launiston Court Hotel, whose website lists “11 luxurious rooms, tastefully decorated and serviced on a daily basis,” as wells as  “glorious sea views” among its selling points, beat around 650,000 hotels listed on the Tripadvisor site — with luxury resorts in Marrakech and Belize among the runners up. The annual awards, now in their 11th year, are based on reviews posted over the past year by the site’s millions of users.

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Over 400 guests voted the hotel, where rooms go for just $56 a night, as “excellent,” praising its and cooked-to-order breakfasts and clean rooms, as well as the proprietors themselves, Carol-Lynn and Ian Robbins. But the real key to its success? the Daily Mail reports that Mrs. Robbins said she and her husband were always willing to go the extra mile — booking restaurants or doctor’s appointments or driving guests to the theater when it rained. She even said she once helped an elderly lady get dressed in heavy Highlands costume for a Scottish wedding.

The phone has reportedly been ringing off the hook for bookings at the Launriston since the news emerged. But could Llandudno, whose star attractions include the Happy Valley park and  Llandudno Pier, become a new travel hotspot as a result of the award? “It’s good, but it doesn’t necessarily mean that people who previously were going to the Shangri-La in the Maldives will now start going to Llandudno,” said the Independent’s travel editor Simon Calder. “Although arguably there’s a very good case why they should.”

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