Rich tradition, unique offerings make Rambagh Palace the world's top hotel

By Archana Sharma
Jaipur, May 27 Analysing 12-month of Tripadvisor review data from over 1.5 million hotels worldwide, Tripadvisor's Travellers Choice Best of the Best Hotels reveals travellers favourite accommodation choices across 10 categories.

This year, the No. 1 rank in the prestigious Top Hotels category has gone to the Rambagh Palace in Jaipur, the 1835 palace-turned-luxurious hotel which has over 5,000 five-bubble reviews.

"Promoting indigenous Indian culture, celebrating festivals like Divali and Holi with grandeur, and storytelling by artisans telling the tale of timeless handmade craft of India helped us clinch the best hotel title in the world.

"It's for the first time that any Indian hotel has left the best global brands behind and notched the top rank," Ashok Rathore, Area Director and General Manager, Rambagh Palace, told on the sidelines of a presser organised at the hotel on Saturday.

"Ever since we have named the world' best hotel, we have been flooded with calls from guests from different parts of the world seeking booking, both for leisure and destination wedding. I'm confident that post Covid, this will boost tourism not only in Rajasthan, but across India. Post the pandemic, the foreign tourist footfalls had dropped, but now with an Indian hotel securing the top spot in a Tripadvisor's survey, we are sure to get more tourists from overseas," he added.

Over the years, Rambagh Palace has hosted celebrities like Queen Elizabeth II, Lord Mountbatten, former US President Bill Clinton and family, and ex-Twitter boss Jack Dorsey, among many others.

"The USP of this property is that there is no renovation, but only restoration; we have preserved the legacy of the erstwhile royals," Rathore said.

"As the world looks upon us as the leader now, we have bigger responsibilities. We have decided to organise a Millet Food Festival. Before Green Revolution, people used to have jowar and bajra regularly. However, after the Green Revolution, our food habits changed. Now we want the world to experience our traditional food. We are also reviving lost cuisines."

Rathore said the hotel wants to create a lot more experiences to promote the heritage and culture of Rajasthan.