Recognition That Comes From Experience
October 6, 2026
Why the 2026 Condé Nast Readers’ Choice Awards mean so much to MORE Collection and the teams behind Lion Sands Game Reserve, Monwana Game Lodge and Cape Cadogan Boutique Hotel.
There are many awards in the travel industry. We do not measure our success by all of them.
The Condé Nast Traveler and Condé Nast Traveller Readers’ Choice Awards carry particular weight because the recognition comes directly from travellers, reflecting the experiences they have had and the places they remember.
In 2026, three MORE Collection properties have been recognised. Lion Sands Game Reserve was ranked No. 2 among the Best Resorts in South Africa by US readers and No. 7 by UK readers. Monwana Game Lodge was ranked No. 8 in the US and No. 14 in the UK, while Cape Cadogan Boutique Hotel was named the No. 6 Best Hotel in South Africa by US readers.
The rankings are worth celebrating. What makes them particularly meaningful is who they came from - the guests and travellers who experienced these places and chose to recognise them.
Recognition that comes from travellers
The Condé Nast Readers’ Choice Awards are not determined by a small judging panel. Winners are selected entirely by readers through annual surveys reflecting their own travel experiences.
In 2026, Condé Nast Traveler received more than 798,867 survey responses from readers across the United States, while nearly 200,000 Condé Nast Traveller readers participated in the UK awards.
Every vote begins with an individual experience: someone who travelled, spent time at a property and remembered it strongly enough to recognise it afterwards.
For us, the awards offer a view of the guest experience from the other side - not what we say about our properties, but what travellers remember about being there.
The people behind the recognition
A guest experiences the finished result.
They see a room prepared for their arrival, a table set for dinner or a field guide waiting for the morning game drive. They experience a dietary preference remembered, a recommendation that changes their afternoon or the small details that make a stay feel considered rather than prescribed.
What they don't necessarily see is everything required to make those moments happen consistently.
Hospitality is built through hundreds of decisions made every day, many of them away from the guest's view. It depends on people communicating, noticing, preparing and taking responsibility for their part in a much bigger experience.
Our purpose, Great People. Strong Connections., reflects that belief. A remarkable wilderness can provide the setting for a safari, and a beautiful building in one of Cape Town's most interesting neighbourhoods can provide the setting for a city stay. But neither determines how a guest will remember being there.
People do.
It is the field guide who understands when to share knowledge and when to allow a moment to unfold quietly. The chef who adapts a meal around a guest. The housekeeper who notices something before it needs to be requested. The host who remembers a conversation from the previous evening. And the teams behind them making sure the operation works as it should.
As Robert More, Custodian and CEO of MORE Collection, puts it, the people being recognised are those who “show up every day, doing the work, paying attention to detail, and delivering consistently, whether anyone’s watching or not.”
Individual gestures may seem small. Together, repeated consistently across hundreds of stays, they shape the experience guests carry home.
The Condé Nast Traveller results bring some of that work into view.
What recognition means when it comes from guests
Awards are a moment in time. Guest trust is built over much longer periods.
That is why the value of this recognition lies beyond the rankings themselves. Having three of our properties recognised by Condé Nast readers across the US and UK is something we are enormously proud of. But the rankings also represent something more important: the experiences of the people who stayed with us and chose to recognise us.
People came. They experienced these places. And they remembered them.
For the teams who created those experiences, that carries real weight.
And to every guest and traveller who took the time to vote for Lion Sands, Monwana or Cape Cadogan, thank you.
The 2026 Condé Nast Readers’ Choice Awards are both recognition and encouragement: recognition of work already done, and encouragement to keep doing the things that earned the trust of travellers in the first place.
Not for the awards.
For the people who walk through the door next.
