Hilton Durban voted SA's favourite hotel

"Hilton Durban prides itself on its excellent service standards and premium facilities and it is a great honour to be awarded South Africa's Favourite Hotel. The title is recognition of the tireless efforts by our team members to provide every guest with an exceptional experience. We are thrilled to note that the results of the voting comprised feedback from our valued customers and members within the travel and tourism industry," said Evan Harrington, acting GM of the Hilton Durban.

Hotels from the Durban area featured strongly, with the Hilton Durban and Southern Sun Elangeni & Mahirini taking up first and second place and two hotels from Umhlanga also in the Top 10 (Beverly Hills Hotel and The Oyster Box). Cape Town also had four hotels in the Top 10, with the One & Only being the best hotel in Cape Town (the other three are the Mandela Rhodes Place Hotel & Spa, The Twelve Apostles Hotel & Spa and The Mount Nelson). Making up the remainder of the Top 10 were The Palace of the Lost City (at Sun City) and The Michelangelo Hotel (the only hotel in Joburg to make the top 10).

Gauteng had the most voters

Although the Michelangelo was the only hotel from Gauteng in the top 10, this wasn't as a result of a lack of Gauteng voters taking part - Gauteng Province had the most voters (41%) of all provinces. On the other hand KwaZulu-Natal had only the third-most voters (18%) of provinces after Gauteng and the Western Cape (24%), yet the two top hotels are in KwaZulu-Natal.

SouthAfrica.TO analysts surmise that this is because the most vivid hotel experiences are formed when travelling outside one's own province (e.g. those from Gauteng travelling to Durban) and actually staying in hotels, as opposed to opinions formed when driving past hotels in one's home town or perhaps dining there, which could be a lot weaker.

"Our readers have spoken and we'd like to congratulate the Hilton Durban on being voted in as South Africa's favourite hotel. Also congratulations to the runner-up, the Southern Sun Elangeni & Maharini. It was very close between the front runners and it's fantastic to see two Durban-based hotels in the lead. A huge thank you to all our readers, both of our newsletters and those on our social media platforms, who took part in the SouthAfrica.TO Travel Awards for allowing us to hear their collective voice during the voting stage in August. I'm confident that this will allow us to learn from each other and make wiser travel choices," said Rob Baker, co-owner of SouthAfrica.TO