CAA/AAA sprinkles diamonds around

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This article was published 24/11/2001 (8824 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

THREE Canadian lodgings — all in British Columbia — and five restaurants have earned the prestigious CAA/AAA Five Diamond Award for 2002.

The Four Seasons Hotel in Vancouver has earned the elite CAA/AAA five diamond rating for the 26th consecutive year. Other Canadian gems include The Pan Pacific Hotel Vancouver, and The Sutton Place Hotel in Vancouver.

Restaurants receiving the five diamond Award include the Five Sails Restaurant in the Pan Pacific Hotel Vancouver, Truffles in the Four Seasons Hotel Toronto, Le Baccara in Hull, Que., Nuances in Montreal and the Auberge Hatley Inn in North Hatley, Que.

In the U.S., the AAA also liberally sprinkled diamonds over the western states in its 2002 list of top hotels and restaurants.

For the first time, Las Vegas restaurants broke into the ranks of five diamonds with Picasso at the Bellagio and Renoir at the Mirage. The Bellagio resort also made the five-diamond list for the first time; at 3,005 rooms, it is the largest hotel in that elite group, said AAA spokeswoman Janie Graziani. The other Las Vegas member is the Four Seasons.

Also added to the list were the Beverly Hills Hotel, Raffles L’Ermitage Beverly Hills and the Four Seasons Hotel in Los Angeles near Beverly Hills. California, with a total of 11 five-diamond lodgings, has more than twice as many as any other state. By contrast, Hawaii was down to three listed hotels after the Halekulani and the Kahala Mandarin Oriental Hawaii, both in Honolulu, dropped to four diamonds.

Among California restaurants, long-listed L’Orangerie in West Hollywood dropped to four diamonds, but the addition of Charles Nob Hill in San Francisco kept the California total to five restaurants with the highest ranking, the same as in 2001.

In New York, the addition of Alain Ducasse at the Essex House gave the city, and the state, a total of six five-diamond restaurants, tying Illinois for top place.

To be considered for CAA/AAA rating and approval, lodgings and restaurants must undergo a thorough evaluation by one of the 65 full-time, trained, professional tourism editors. five diamond establishments go through an extensive review. More than 41,000 lodgings and restaurants will be listed in the 2002 CAA/AAA TourBook guides, and less than one-half of one per cent receive a five diamond Rating.

CAA and AAA first started listing accommodation information in their travel publications in the early 1900s. In 1937, the first field inspectors were hired to inspect hotels, motels and restaurants. In 1963, CAA and AAA began to rate all accommodations as good, very good, excellent and outstanding. The current one- to five-diamond rating system was introduced in 1977 for lodgings and in 1989 for restaurants, and continues to be the recognized standard of quality for North American lodgings and restaurants.

— From the news wires