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Travel and Leisure rates Lapa Rios Ecolodge
among Top 25 Hotels in Mexico and
Central
and South America.
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Rank |
2006 |
Name |
Score |
1 |
3 |
La Casa Que Canta, Zihuatanejo, Mexico |
91.28 |
2 |
8 |
Four Seasons Hotel, Buenos Aires |
90.12 |
3 |
14 |
Esperanza, Los Cabos, Mexico |
89.68 |
4 |
1 |
Ritz-Carlton, Santiago, Chile |
88.86 |
5 |
10 |
One & Only Palmilla, Los Cabos, Mexico | 88.32 |
6 |
n/a |
Turtle Inn, Placencia, Belize |
87.86 |
7 |
4 |
Alvear Palace Hotel, Buenos Aires |
87.80 |
8 |
5 |
Four Seasons Resort
Costa Rica at Peninsula Papagayo |
87.67 |
9 |
13 |
Las Mañanitas, Cuernavaca, Mexico |
87.27 |
10 |
24 |
Royal Hideaway Playacar, Playa del Carmen, Mexico |
86.79 |
11 |
n/a |
Lapa Rios, Corcovado National Park, Costa Rica |
86.75 |
12 |
11 |
Park Hyatt, Mendoza, Argentina |
86.71 |
13
|
9 |
Blancaneaux Lodge, Mountain Pine Ridge Reserve, Belize |
86.50 |
14 |
n/a |
Hotel Villa del Sol, Zihuatanejo, Mexico |
86.42 |
15 |
n/a |
Tides Riviera Maya
, Playa del Carmen, Mexico
*Formerly Ikal del Mar, Playa del Carmen, Mexico |
86.39 |
16 |
n/a |
Maroma Resort & Spa, Riviera Maya, Mexico |
86.33 |
17 |
18 |
Four Seasons Resort Punta Mita, Mexico |
86.00 |
18 |
n/a |
The Lodge at Chaa Creek, San Ignacio, Belize |
85.50 |
19 |
6 |
Hotel Monasterio, Cuzco, Peru |
85.47 |
20 |
20 |
Four Seasons Hotel México D.F.
, Mexico City |
85.03 |
21 |
16 |
Casa Santo Domingo,Antigua,Guatemala |
85.00 |
22 |
n/a |
Marquis Los Cabos, Mexico |
84.82 |
23 |
17 |
Las Ventanas al Paraíso, Los Cabos, Mexico |
84.69 |
24 |
7 |
Llao Llao Hotel & Resort, San Carlos de Bariloche, Argentina |
84.56 |
25 |
12 |
Ritz-Carlton, Cancún |
84.36 |
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* "N/A" means that the property was not among the top-ranked in this category last year. |
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Methodology
|
|
A questionnaire developed by the editors of Travel + Leisure, in association with Harris Interactive, was made available to Travel + Leisure subscribers at tlworldsbest.com from January 17, 2007, to March 27, 2007. In the February and March 2007 issues of Travel + Leisure, subscribers were invited to participate. A select group of subscribers also received an invitation via e-mail. Travel + Leisure subscribers were asked to enter their complete name (as it appears on their mailing label), as well as their five-digit ZIP code, at tlworldsbest.com before completing the survey. Only those responses from subscribers whose personal information entered at tlworldsbest.com exactly matched Travel + Leisure's subscriber file were counted in the final tally. Respondents were permitted to complete the survey only once. To protect the integrity of the data, after March 27, 2007, respondents were screened by Travel + Leisure and responses from any identified travel-industry professionals who completed the survey were eliminated from the final tally. The survey Web site, tlworldsbest.com, was maintained, monitored, and kept secure by Harris Interactive, which collected and tabulated the responses and kept them confidential.
The scores are indexed averages of responses concerning applicable characteristics. Respondents were required to rate hotel spas on four characteristics; hotels, islands, airlines, destination spas, and rental-car agencies on five characteristics; and cities, cruise lines, and tour operators and safari outfitters on six characteristics (see below). In the 'hotel' category, respondents could also rate properties on additional optional characteristics; these ratings were not included in final scores. For each characteristic, respondents were asked to rate a candidate on a scale of 1 to 5, where '5' means excellent and '1' means poor. Required ratings were then averaged, creating an overall score. A minimum number of responses was necessary for a candidate to be eligible for inclusion in the World's Best Awards listings. Some companies were rated in both the 'cruise lines' and 'tour operators and safari outfitters' categories, and some properties were rated in both the 'destination spas' and 'hotel spas' categories. In both cases, companies and properties have different scores for each category. |
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- For hotels: rooms/facilities, location, service, restaurants/food, value. Optional: for business, for families.
- For destination spas: accommodations/ambience, treatments, service, food, value.
- For hotel spas: ambience, treatments, service, value.
- For cities: sights, culture/arts, restaurants/food, people, shopping, value.
- For islands: natural attractions, activities/sights, restaurants/food, people, value.
- For cruise lines: cabins, food, service, itineraries/destinations, activities, value.
- For tour operators and safari outfitters: staff/guides, itineraries/destinations, activities, accommodations, food, value.
- For airlines: cabin comfort, food, in-flight service, customer service, value.
- For rental-car agencies: vehicle selection, vehicle availability, car rental location, service, value.
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Lapa Rios Ecolodge, Costa Rica mentioned
in
Travel & Leisure Magazine |
Lapa Rios has had several mentions in Travel & Leisure Magazine over the past years. It has been mentioned as a trend setting eco resort and a must go destination in the Corcovado / Osa Peninsula area of Costa Rica. See below a few samples of Lapa Rios’ mentioning in Travel and Leisure magazine.
Planning a trip to Costa Rica—where your choices are virtually endless—can be overwhelming. Here, five takes on Central America's jungle-and-beach paradise, whatever your interest. By Rich Beattie.
2 ECO Twelve years ago, with the opening of 16-room Lapa Rios (011-506/2735-5130; www.laparios.com; doubles from $484) beside Corcovado National Park, Costa Rica became a haven for eco-travelers. Built around the rain forest (instead of the other way around), using indigenous natural materials and supporting local businesses whenever possible, the palm-thatched bungalows and bamboo furniture remain the standard of eco-friendly luxury.
OSA PENINSULA
Time: Five days. In southern Costa Rica, the remote Osa Peninsula is one of the most biologically dense tropical regions on earth. Scarlet macaws do flybys past the lodges, howler monkeys swing from the forest canopy, and whales migrate along the coast. Basically, if it lives and breathes in Costa Rica—caiman, iguana, sloth, jaguar—it probably resides in the nature preserves, public and private, that blanket this peninsula. Some of the world's first ecolodges were built in the undeveloped jungles of Drake Bay, Golfito, and Corcovado National Park; they are still models of sustainable tourism today.
When they opened Lapa Rios in 1993, Americans Karen and John Lewis pioneered the practice of ecotourism in Costa Rica. The 16-room hardwood-and-thatch resort on 1,000 protected acres of jungle and Pacific oceanfront continues to win conservation awards. Visitors often plan their Costa Rican vacations around availability at Lapa Rios, whose friendly service and surprisingly creative meals—not to mention alfresco showers, private decks, and abundant wildlife right outside your screen door—make up for the rickety prop plane (and the airsickness) that gets you there. Just be sure to take a low-numbered room: the higher they get, the farther the trek up and down the steep incline on which the villas are built.
Naturally Speaking
July's "25 Great Ecolodges" by David Hochman failed to mention Lapa Rios in Costa Rica [Puerto Jimenez, Peninsula de Osa; 011-506/2735-5130; www.laparios.com; doubles from $334]. I stayed in one of its 16 luxurious cabins with a private garden and indoor-outdoor shower last October. Built by a Minnesota couple as a nature reserve in 1993, Lapa Rios protects 1,000 acres of rain forest and is the largest employer on the Osa Peninsula.
—PHYLLIS HIRSHORN, NEW YORK, N.Y.
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