Who we assess
Nineteen kinds of establishment, each assessed as a guest of that kind.
A guest journey through a safari lodge is nothing like a guest journey through a day spa, and an assessment that treats them alike is worth neither fee.
The lodge welcomes at an airstrip. The villa has no front desk at all. The wine estate’s treatment is a tasting, and the restaurant’s whole service is a question of time. What a guest meets, in what order, and what they are quietly deciding while they meet it, differs so completely between these that a single generic visit would miss the point of most of them.
So each category below is approached on its own terms — the journey a guest actually takes through it, the moments that carry disproportionate weight in it, and what an owner of one cannot see from where they stand. Pick the one that is yours.
Stay
Where a guest sleeps, and is therefore yours for longer than any other kind of establishment gets.
Hotels
We book a room, stay the night and pay the bill like anyone else — then tell you what the whole of it was actually like.
Boutique hotels
We stay as an ordinary guest at a hotel small enough that your judgement is the product, and report what that judgement produced on an unremarkable Tuesday.
Lodges
We arrive the way a guest does — at the end of a long road, at the end of a day — and report what the arrival, the hosting and the leaving were actually like.
Safari and game lodges
We arrive off an airstrip or at the end of a transfer, the way your guests do, and report the whole stay — drives included.
Private villas and residences
We take the house for a stay as an ordinary party would, and report what a property with no front desk actually delivered.
Wellness
Where a guest arrives dressed and leaves changed, and almost none of the visit is the treatment.
Day spas
We book a treatment, arrive as any guest would and pay at the desk — and report the whole visit, not the treatment alone.
Hotel and resort spas
We book your spa the way a guest of the hotel would, and report what the spa did to the stay around it.
Wellness retreats
We join a retreat as an ordinary participant and report what the days actually did, from the first email to the week afterwards.
Table
Where the product is excellent and the service around it is what decides the evening.
Journey
Where the guest cannot leave, and consistency stops being an aspiration and becomes the product.
Cruises
We sail as an ordinary passenger, in an ordinary cabin, and report the whole voyage — from the queue on the quay to the last morning.
Luxury trains
We travel as an ordinary passenger and report the whole journey, from the platform to the last morning.
Yachts and charters
We charter as an ordinary party and report the whole week, from the first broker’s email to the final account.
Private aviation
We book a charter as an ordinary client and report the whole movement, from the quote to the car on the other side.
Airport lounges
We come in on an ordinary ticket at your busiest hour, and report what ninety minutes in the lounge was actually worth.
Chauffeur and transfer services
We book a transfer as an ordinary client and report the whole of it — the booking, the wait, the car and the handover.
Club
Where members are looked after by habit, and a visitor is left to work out whether they are welcome.
Arranged
Where what is sold is a promise about the future, judged entirely on how the promise was made.
Not on this list?
Tell our team what you run. If a proper assessment of it can be made, they will say so and how; if it cannot yet, they will say that instead, which is the more useful of the two answers.
Our team replies within three working days.