Every entry starts from the same question: what is this hotel like to stay in, and what is it trading away to be what it is? That means we write about the room, the service and the building before we write about the feature that got the hotel into its category. A capsule hotel is a hotel with small rooms. A casino hotel is a hotel with a gaming floor. An art hotel is a hotel that gave part of itself to somebody else's work.

We keep the facts general on purpose. Rates change, restaurants close, refurbishments happen, and a page that quotes a precise number is wrong within a season. Where a detail matters — that a hotel is inside an airport terminal, that its bathrooms are shared, that it closes in summer — we say it plainly, because that is the kind of thing that changes a decision.

The index is independent and editorial. We do not take bookings, we do not sell placement, and nothing on the site is a review in the star-rating sense. If something here is out of date or wrong, the contact page exists for exactly that.