New York City tops the nation with the most "Best of Housekeeping" hotels.
If cleanliness is godliness, then only heavenly hotels are suitable for meeting groups. Fortunately, finding them has just gotten easier thanks to a new award from AAA.
Introduced yesterday, the “Inspector’s Best of Housekeeping” award recognizes hotels that have received the highest possible scores for cleanliness and condition from the professionally trained AAA inspectors who review properties for the purpose of giving them AAA diamond ratings. To receive such ratings, hotels at every level -- from one diamond to five -- must meet certain minimum standards. Those that exceed such expectations during comprehensive, unannounced on-site inspections will now receive a special distinction that helps guests easily identify hotels that are free of dirt, dust, pests and broken equipment.
In order to receive the “Inspector’s Best of Housekeeping” award -- recipients of which are in the top 25 percent of all 27,000 hotels that are inspected and approved by AAA -- properties must demonstrate excellence in housekeeping and maintenance for two consecutive inspections and must be free of AAA member complaints.
“In addition to passing AAA’s rigorous on-site inspection, the properties that have received the ‘Inspector’s Best of Housekeeping’ award have demonstrated a tremendous commitment to keeping their property in top condition -- whether that be a small inn or bed-and-breakfast, a sprawling resort or a skyscraping city hotel -- at all times for our members and their guests,” said Michael Petrone, director of AAA Inspections & Diamond Ratings.
As of July 2019, California (with 982 designated properties), Florida (485), Texas (468), North Carolina (458) and New York (406) are the states with the most “Best of Housekeeping” hotels in the country. The cities with the cleanest hotels are New York (161 "Best of Housekeeping" properties), Houston (90), Washington, D.C. (78), Orlando (69) and Charlotte, N.C. (68).
Hotels that have earned the designation receive a special badge that appears on their listings in the AAA Travel Guides and the AAA TripTik Travel Planner. Hotels without the badge have not qualified.
“AAA has found that cleanliness and physical condition are consistently among the most important components travelers consider when looking for a hotel. This new designation identifies hotels with exceptional practices,” Petrone noted. “The vast majority of ‘AAA Inspected & Approved’ hotels fall in the midscale, three-diamond range, so those that earn the ‘Inspector’s Best of Housekeeping’ badge are a step above in a way that matters to today’s discerning traveler.”