How IGC Selects the World’s Most Hospitable Hotels

IGC Hotel Award Methodology – a transparent, data-driven evaluation inspired by proven service quality models, validated by human expertise, and based on verified guest feedback.

Award Methodology

Across cities and regions, only a few hotels – sometimes not even a single one – ever meet the conditions to be recognised. Where hospitality is lived so consistently that it remains in the hearts of guests, the IGC Hotel Award appears.
Quiet. Rare. Earned.

The IGC Hotel Award celebrates hotels that consistently achieve outstanding guest satisfaction and service quality — expressed in the warmth, attentiveness, and personal care that guests remember long after they leave.

At the heart of our evaluation is The IGC Score – Hospitality & Guest Satisfaction Index™ (HGSI) – our proprietary measurement system, developed in-house and refined through continuous research since 2004 in collaboration with leading hospitality specialists. Over the years, IGC has studied how and why guest expectations towards hotels evolve, identifying the factors that shape satisfaction and trust, and the point at which satisfaction turns into guest enthusiasm and advocacy.

The IGC Score draws inspiration from internationally recognised service quality models, including principles similar to the Net Promoter Score (NPS) – which estimates the likelihood of guests recommending a hotel – and the SERVQUAL framework – which evaluates key dimensions of service quality. These proven principles are adapted to the type of data available in public guest reviews and combined with verified hospitality KPIs to create a reliable, region-specific quality benchmark. Where data is limited or ambiguous, human expertise ensures accuracy, context, and fairness.

1. Clear and Fair Eligibility Criteria

To be considered, a hotel must:

Why this matters: These requirements ensure we only assess hotels with a strong and consistent online presence – and only those whose hospitality has become clearly and repeatedly visible in the voices of their guests. This is why so few hotels meet the standard – and why being selected is such a rare recognition.

2. Data Sources

We use ratings and hospitality-related feedback primarily from the world’s most trusted review platforms, including:

All information is obtained strictly in line with applicable laws and platform terms of service. Data is collected either via official, authorised APIs or from publicly visible content where permitted by local regulations. When automated access is not available, our validation team manually verifies the information to ensure accuracy and compliance.

We do not claim any affiliation or endorsement from these platforms.

3. Multi-Stage Selection Process

Step 1 – AI Discovery & Filtering

AI-powered tools identify hotels that meet the IGC eligibility criteria and apply the IGC Score – Hospitality & Guest Satisfaction Index™ (HGSI). The system scans ratings, review volumes, and platform coverage, while running an initial sentiment analysis of guest feedback.

Checklist:

Step 2 – Human Review & Refinement

Our research team carefully reviews the AI results, removing duplicates, filtering out irrelevant entries, and adding any qualifying hotels that may have been overlooked. This step ensures accuracy and fairness beyond automation.

Checklist:

Step 3 – Manual KPI Verification

In the final stage, an additional verification tool re-checks all shortlisted hotels to validate key performance indicators and detect any irregularities. After this automated safeguard, our internal panel of reviewers manually inspects the data a second time, ensuring that only hotels with authentic, reliable, and compliant feedback remain in the selection. This dual-layer process guarantees maximum accuracy and integrity.

Checklist:

4. How the Final Score is Calculated

Each hotel’s performance is summarised in
The IGC Score – Hospitality & Guest Satisfaction Index™ (HGSI),
which is based on two main components:

A. Hospitality Sentiment

The IGC proprietary sentiment analysis:

Incorporates concepts from the Net Promoter Score (NPS) by examining guest feedback for indicators of advocacy and likelihood to recommend, rather than asking guests directly.

Uses a service quality assessment inspired by the SERVQUAL model to measure:

Advanced AI processes guest reviews in multiple languages, mapping statements to these dimensions to create a data-driven service profile.

B. Hospitality KPIs

Hospitality KPIs are the scores hotels receive on trusted booking and review platforms. They provide clear, numerical measures of guest satisfaction and service quality, balancing the personal experiences reflected in sentiment analysis with structured, comparable data.

While individual reviews reflect personal stories, aggregated platform ratings capture the collective voice of thousands of guests.

Together, Hospitality Sentiment and Hospitality KPIs form a holistic view: one captures the guest experience in their own words, the other quantifies it across trusted platforms.

5. Why This Method is Trustworthy

Equal Treatment – All hotels are measured against the same transparent standards.
Data Accuracy – All ratings and KPIs are verified manually from official, lawful sources.
Balanced Judgment – We combine objective scores with sentiment analysis to capture both measurable service quality and guest-perceived warmth.
Region-Specific Fairness – Weightings adapt to the platforms most trusted and widely used in each region.
No Hidden Bias – Only hotels with enough guest feedback are assessed to ensure reliability.

6. Responsible, Lawful, and Integrity-Driven Use of Data

We comply with all platform terms of service:

In Short

The IGC Hotel Award is earned — never bought.
It appears only when guests not only visit, but love a hotel.
It is the quiet confirmation that hospitality has been lived so genuinely, so consistently, that it has left a lasting mark.
Those who carry it have not simply met expectations – they have created something that remains.