The JC travel section is always happy to be ahead of the curve. This week, we got our timing absolutely right when, just a few days after our hotel review of Villa D’Este, the historic Italian hotel – and regular haunt of politicos, royals, writers, rock-stars and movie-stars – was voted the world’s best hotel by Forbes Traveller.

The editors of Forbes Traveller conducted a poll among their top travel connoisseurs (and at Forbes Magazines, that really is the top echelon of businesspeople in the world), asking them to rate nearly 800 of the world’s best hotels and to name their single best hotel overall. To qualify to be a member of the judging panel - which included celebrities, journalists and business leaders - each of them had to have stayed in at least 20, five-star hotels each year. To achieve such exalted status, the hotel, which sits majestically beside Lake Como, was judged on – among other things - room quality, service, decor and cuisine.

As the writer of the JC piece, I am thrilled to have my judgement endorsed by the readers of Forbes; it just goes to show, we know our hotels at the JC... www.thejc.com/Hotel Review: Villa D’Este, Lake Como, Italy