Cambodian Raffles Hotel Le Royal Voted Among The Best Hotels By Luxury Lifestyle Magazine
Raffles Hotel Le Royal in Cambodia, which has won several awards over the years, has been voted one of the 'World’s Best City Hotels' in 2023 by UK-based Luxury Lifestyle Magazine.
This was the sixth year that the LLM had run their awards, which highlight the very best in the travel industry, from the finest hotels across the world to premium airlines, cruise lines, destinations and tour operators.
LLM Editor-in-chief, Nick Gibbens said
Hopefully these results will encourage travellers to seek out these premium picks for their next luxury break. Our discerning and dedicated readers have had their say and we are so grateful to all who made it their mission to throw their support behind each and every one of our shortlisted hotels, destinations, cruise lines, airlines, airports, tour operators and travel websites.
The results, which were released in December 2023, ranked the five-star luxury heritage hotel based in the Cambodian capital of Phnom Penh as 24th in its global ranking in the annual readers’ travel awards.
The prestigious hotel was the only one from Cambodia to be honoured in its category in the LLM Readers’ Travel Awards 2023. Raffles Hotel Le Royal originally opened in 1929 and now features 175 rooms and suites that underwent a full refurbishment as part of a meticulous one-year restoration project in 2019.
Raffles Hotel Le Royal - Award-Winning Hotel
The top 25 hotels recognised globally in the "Best City Hotel" in which Raffles was ranked 24th, are:
1. Andaz London Liverpool Street, London, England
2. Avani Palazzo Moscova Milan, Italy
3. Culloden Estate and Spa, Belfast, Northern Ireland
4. Avani Alonso Martinez Madrid, Spain 5. DUKES London, England
6. Four Seasons Park Lane, London, England
7. Francis Hotel Bath, Somerset, England
8. INNSiDE by Melia Bangkok Sukhumvit, Bangkok in Thailand
9. Hotel Arts Barcelona, Catalonia, Spain
10. La Sultana Marrakech, Morocco
11. Hotel L’Elysee, Paris, France
12. Dao by Dorsett West London, England
13. Waldorf Astoria Edinburgh – The Caledonian, Edinburgh, Scotland
14. InterContinental Lisbon, Portugal
15. The Witchery, Edinburgh, Scotland
16. ME London, England
17. Melia Chiang Mai, Thailand
18. Prestonfield House, Edinburgh, Scotland
19. Palazzo Ripetta, Rome, Italy
20. NH Collection New York Madison Avenue, New York, USA
21. The Gainsborough Bath Spa, Somerset, England
22. The Glasshouse Hotel, Edinburgh, Scotland
23. NH Collection Firenze Palazzo Gaddi, Florence, Italy
24. Raffles Hotel Le Royal, Phnom Penh, Cambodia
25. Grand Central Hotel Belfast, Northern Ireland 
Cambodian Raffles Hotel Le Royal Elephant Bar Previously, the Travel + Leisure Luxury Awards Asia Pacific 2023 named Raffles Hotel Le Royal one of the top city hotels in Cambodia, while General Manager Dennis de Groot was honoured as one of the country’s top hotel GMs.
The hotel's swimming pool was also declared "the very best in all of Cambodia." The Phnom Penh hotel was also voted the top-ranked hotel in Cambodia by readers of Condé Nast Traveler in its annual Readers’ Choice Awards in 2022.
Cambodian Tourism and Hotel Sector 2024
It would be noted that there was one other winner among the various categories from Luxury Lifestyle Magazine in Cambodia. In the "Best Boutique Hotel" category, the FCC Angkor by Avani based in Siem Reap was ranked 8th overall. Tourism is one of the core pillars of Cambodia’s economy, and it is expected to play a significant role in the country’s economic recovery in 2023.
There were several new hotels completed in 2023 in Cambodia, adding over 650 rooms in the capital alone and raising the total supply in Phnom Penh to over 14,600 keys by mid-2023. According to the Asian Development Outlook (ADO), the Cambodian tourism sector is projected to grow by 6.5% in 2024.
Read more about the tourism sector in Cambodia: