By Victoria Burrows

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Soneva Fushi, a luxury resort in the Baa Atoll Unesco Biosphere Reserve in the Maldives, has won the Art of Hospitality Award in the World’s 50 Best Hotels 2025 ranking.
The island resort brings the award to Asia for the first time – Gleneagles in Scotland won the inaugural title in 2023, followed by Royal Mansour in Marrakech, Morocco, in 2024.
For the award, members of the World’s 50 Best Hotels voting academy – made up of more than 800 anonymous hoteliers, travel journalists, hotel educators, business travellers and travel aficionados – were asked to name the hotel they had stayed at within the two-year voting period that offered the best hospitality experience.
Voters were asked to consider factors including ambience, delivery of unique experiential elements, and overall warmth of the hospitality and environment.

Antony Paton, general manager at Soneva Fushi, says that offering the world’s finest hospitality all comes down to the people who work there – referred to as “hosts” at Soneva Fushi.
“I can tell you very straightforwardly that it’s all to do with the hosts and their attitude to our guests – they’re not there to shake the hand of the guests and serve them, they’re there to build relationships,” says Paton, who was a butler to a royal family before his long career as a hotelier, including overseeing the opening of three former Soneva resorts.
Each of Soneva Fushi’s 71 villas is assigned a “barefoot guardian” – essentially a butler – who makes detailed digital notes on guest preferences, from food to accommodation set-up, activities and spa treatments.
As 58 per cent of guests are repeat visitors, Paton says having this information on file is invaluable. For new guests, hosts research online to get to know them before arrival.
Resort staff are given extensive soft skills training, with Paton focusing on abilities such as reading body language, listening properly, anticipating needs and attention to detail.

Soneva Fushi, which also won 50 Best’s World’s Best Beach Hotel Award in 2023 and 2024, was the first resort of its kind in the Maldives when it opened in 1995 and set a new standard for “barefoot luxury” hideaways in the region.
The resort pioneered the “no shoes, no news” concept that defines the personality of the Soneva brand. The slogan is taken quite literally: on the boat ride to reach the island, butlers ask guests if they would like to relinquish their footwear, before placing them in a monogrammed bag and spraying the guests’ feet with a calming balm.
“Most of our guests absolutely love the feeling of the sand on their feet. We’ve kept the ‘no shoes’ bit from the very beginning, but of course ‘no news’ is difficult these days with mobile phones,” says Paton.
“But still, I greet a lot of very wealthy guests here, and some of them arrive still in their work suits, believe it or not, looking tired and grey, and it’s wonderful to see that after a week they’ve got a bit of colour on their face, they’ve relaxed, they’re not holding their mobile phone any more.”
Soneva Fushi’s hospitality extends into its wide range of food offerings: there are 14 restaurants, including a sushi bar helmed by an expert Japanese chef, a plant-based kitchen using produce from the resort’s gardens, a treetop restaurant accessed by zip line and an overwater bistro. Butlers can also organise picnics on secluded islands.

Activities are also diverse and aim to offer unique experiences to guests. As well as snorkelling with manta rays or stargazing at the island’s observatory, the resort runs the Soneva Stars calendar, which offers a rotating line-up of world-renowned chefs, wellness experts and sporting legends.
The resort has long been praised for its focus on sustainability. It is plastic-free, filters its own drinking water from seawater and composts food waste. In the glass studio, four craftsmen transform empty wine bottles into handblown crockery and cutlery for the restaurants, while at Makers’ Place, two artisans turn tin cans into artworks for sale in the resort shop.
Paton says about half of his guests are aware of the resort’s sustainability credentials, and that a small percentage come as “they know they can trust us because we’re genuine about being as sustainable as possible”.
The Art of Hospitality Award is the first of two special accolades announced ahead of the official World’s 50 Best Hotels 2025 ceremony, which will take place on October 30 in London.
The rankings, which last year saw Capella Bangkok in first position, is now in its third year. In October, along with the top 50, the list of hotels ranked 51-100 will be revealed for the first time.

“While many of the properties on The World’s 50 Best Hotels list are set in extraordinary destinations, what makes them truly unforgettable are the passionate teams who bring them to life,” says Emma Sleight, head of content at 50 Best.
“The ones that truly stand out often do so for their service and attention to detail, whether it be their overall ambience and warmth or the delivery of unique experiences.
“The Maldives is a bucket-list destination for so many, but Soneva Fushi itself is too. We, and clearly the voters, remain consistently impressed by Soneva Fushi’s dedication to the very best guest experience.”