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Preview data: all rankings, scores, votes, refresh labels, methodology, testing and editorial-process statements in Top 49 are illustrative demo content, not live measurements or documented reviews.
Rank 073Down 3
#7 in World’s Best Hotels
of 20 ranked entries
Raffles Singapore
Singapore · est. 1887
The birthplace of the Singapore Sling, restored across a multi-year renovation that kept the colonial-era courtyard architecture while rebuilding the infrastructure behind it entirely. Every room is a suite, a policy the hotel has held since long before "all-suite" became a luxury marketing category. Recorded specifics: city Singapore, opened 1887, nightly rate 1100. Panel highlighted all-suite policy predates the category becoming a marketing trend, restoration preserved colonial architecture while genuinely modernising infrastructure and long Bar’s history is documented, not manufactured for guests. The reservation on record is courtyard layout means some suites are a longer walk from the lobby than expected.
City hotelHistoric
Score breakdown
How Raffles Singapore earned 89.9
Each criterion is scored independently, then combined using the weights published on World’s Best Hotels.
- Room & sleep qualityweight 30%
- 92.1
- Service consistencyweight 25%
- 87.2
- Design & atmosphereweight 20%
- 89.3
- Value at rateweight 25%
- 90.7
On the record
Recorded detail
| City | Singapore |
|---|---|
| Opened | 1887 |
| Nightly rate | $1,100 |
| Rooms | 115 |
| Rating | 9.2 |
Panel verdict
Strengths and reservations
What it gets right
- All-suite policy predates the category becoming a marketing trend
- Restoration preserved colonial architecture while genuinely modernising infrastructure
- Long Bar’s history is documented, not manufactured for guests
Where it gives ground
- Courtyard layout means some suites are a longer walk from the lobby than expected
1 appearance
Where this entry ranks
From the same list
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Rank 04Singita Sabi Sand
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Rank 05Aman Tokyo
Tokyo, Japan · est. 2014
Occupies the top six floors of a Otemachi tower, with a lobby built around a washi-paper lantern ceiling that filters daylight the way traditional Japanese architecture has for centuries, reinterpreted at skyscraper scale. Rooms use a restrained material palette that photographs as minimalist and lives as genuinely calming.
92.7/100 Top 49 score—No change
Rank 06Editor’s pickBurj Al Arab Jumeirah
Dubai, UAE · est. 1999
Built on its own artificial island in a sail silhouette specifically so it would be visible from the coastline, and every one of its 202 rooms is a duplex suite, several finished in enough gold leaf that restraint was clearly never the design brief. The helicopter pad doubling as a tennis court and pop-up restaurant is the kind of spectacle no other hotel on this list attempts.
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Rank 08The Savoy
London, UK · est. 1889
The first hotel in Britain with electric lights and lifts throughout, and the American Bar inside it has a documented claim to inventing several cocktails still on menus worldwide. A multi-year, nine-figure restoration in the 2000s kept the Edwardian and Art Deco detailing while rebuilding almost everything guests do not see.
88.2/100 Top 49 scoreNewNew entry
Rank 09Belmond Hotel Cipriani
Venice, Italy · est. 1958
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86.7/100 Top 49 score2Up 2
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Top 49 rankings are editorial. Scores are produced from the published criteria on each list and are refreshed on the cadence stated there. Figures shown across this section are curated demonstration data.