Institutional Investor magazine’s recently ran its 25th
annual survey of its wealthy readers. The St. Regis
Hotel in New York
was ranked first among the world’s top hotels by Institutional Investor
magazine. Survey respondents had average annual incomes of
$817,000 and
spent an average of 62 nights in a hotel last year, the magazine
said.

Following the St. Regis in descending rank
were: Park
Hyatt Paris-Vendôme; Mandarin Oriental, New York; Four
Seasons Milan; Four Seasons Singapore; Four Seasons George V, Paris;
Mandarin Oriental, San Francisco; Ritz-Carlton, Millenia Singapore;
Peninsula Hong Kong and Four Seasons, Chicago.

World Tourism

The World Tourism Organisation announced last month
that the number of tourists around the globe should climb by 4 to 5
percent in 2006 and that tourism grew strongly in 2005 year despite
natural disasters and attacks.

World tourism as measured by international arrivals,
rose 5. 5 percent in 2005 to a record 808 million arrivals though the
pace of growth had slowed sharply from the 10 percent rise in
2004.
“Gradually slowing growth is expected to continue,” the World Tourism
Organisation said in a statement and that growth was likely to stay
above the long-term average of 4. 1 percent thanks to a more robust
global economy and an improved outlook in Europe, particularly Germany,
one of the biggest groups of global tourists.

The WTO said that terrorism, the effect high energy
prices could have on the economy and bird flu could yet threaten
tourism. “However, experience shows that (terrorism’s) impact
lately
has been rather limited and short-lived. Travellers overall
have
assumed the risk and have been undeterred by external threats. ”

So where is tourism growing the fastest? The answer
appears to lie in Africa, up by 10 percent, led by Sub-Saharan
countries such as Kenya with a 26 percent rise in arrivals in the first
10 months of the year and Mozambique with 37 percent more visitors in
the first 9 months of the year.

Tourism to Asia and the Pacific grew 7 percent in
2005.
Countries directly affected by the tsunami which washed away hotels and
beachfronts in late 2004 suffered drops; the Maldives received 39
percent fewer tourists while visitor numbers to Indonesia fell 9
percent. And Sri Lanka reported a drop of just 0. 4 percent
but that
figure could have been skewed by the arrival of aid workers and Sri
Lankan expatriates.

Whilst a string of hurricanes hit the southern United
States last year clouded the outlook for the tourist market, optimism
was starting to return and despite lengthy airport security procedures
cause delays on arriving in the US, the number of visitors to the
United States rose 8 percent last year.