Expedia® travelers have ranked AYANA Resort and Spa Bali among the world’s best hotels on this year’s Expedia Insiders’ Select™ list. The list formally recognizes individual hotels worldwide that consistently deliver excellent service, a great overall experience and offer notable value.  The full list represents just 1 percent of the world’s top hotels from the more than 110,000 hotel properties offered on Expedia.

“Delivering our guests superior service is a top priority at AYANA,” said General Manager Charles de Foucault. “We are delighted that our efforts have been acknowledged by Expedia travelers so soon after our rebranding just one year ago, and we look forward to extending our high level of service to even more guests.”

The 2010 Expedia Insiders’ Select? list is based on more than 1 million independent traveler hotel reviews collected by Expedia, combined with a value rating and the local market expertise of more than 400 Expedia employees in local markets worldwide. With an overall score of 94.6 percent, AYANA was one of just 5 hotels in Bali ranked in the 5-star category to make the list.

This honor follows several other accolades since AYANA rebranded in April 2009. Most recently, the 77-hectare property was voted the #1 Spa Hotel in the World in the 2010 Conde Nast Traveller Readers’ Awards; made the Conde Nast 2010 Gold List (Best Hotels in Asia); was ranked #18 in the World’s Top 20 Best Hotels for Value by Travel + Leisure readers; and won Asia’s Leading Luxury Resort in the 2009 World Travel Awards. AYANA has been nominated in this year’s World Travel Awards for the World’s Leading Spa Resort, Asia’s Leading Luxury Resort, and Asia’s Leading Luxury Villa.
For more information on Expedia’s Insiders’ Select™ program, visit www.expedia.com/insidersselect.

About AYANA Resort and Spa

Named after a ‘place of refuge’ in Sanskrit, AYANA is perched on limestone cliffs up to 30 meters above the Indian Ocean near Jimbaran Bay on Bali’s south-western peninsula. The property enjoys majestic views and a secluded location across its 1.3 kilometer coastline, yet is just 15 minutes from Bali’s airport. The 368 guestrooms comprise 78 private pool villas and a 290-room hotel.

Resort highlights include the 22,000sqm Thermes Marins Thalasso spa with one of the world’s largest Aquatonic Seawater Therapy Pools and the Spa on the Rocks villas set amidst the Indian Ocean. There are five purpose-built wedding venues; the avant-garde Champa Garden for grand-scale events; four freshwater swimming pools including a children’s pool; a salt-water, infinity-edged Ocean Beach Pool at the cliff’s base, accessed via an inclinator; 13 dining venues; 18-hole golf putting course; tennis pavilion; jogging/cycling path; fitness center; children’s center; boutiques; comprehensive meeting facilities and business center; and resort-wide WIFI.

The Dig is a series of aquariums located beneath the lobby of the Royal Towers and is the world’s largest open air marine habitat. Hundreds of different aquatic species can be spotted in the Dig’s various tanks such as angelfish, sharks, manta rays, and various types of jellyfish. The goal of The Dig is to provide guests with a taste of life in the legendary destroyed city ofAtlantis. If one observes the bottom of the floors in the different aquariums, wreckage and debris will be scattered about representing the “Lost City of Atlantis.”

A Predator Lagoon is full of sawsharks, barracudas and stingrays. A 100-foot (30 m) clear acrylic tunnel runs underwater, allowing visitors unobstructed views of the marine environment.

The Seychelles have long been praised as the most perfect, unspoiled islands in all the oceans and Maia is a shining gem in this archipelago of jewels. Situated in the green mountain chain along the bay of Anse Louis in the southwest of Mahé, this beautiful resort is named after the Maia star in The Seven Sisters star constellation.

Expansive villas include a long veranda, a glass-walled garden shower, and a private infinity pool that’s 12 strokes long, as well as a personal butler who wil even ring and artfully arrange shells that you may have picked up while beachcombing.

Designer Bill Bensley’s understated interiors with their cream colors and notched wood floors, leave the drama to nature: At night, sitting in the outdoor bathtub, you can watch the moon illuminating the ink-black sea.

The Maia Spa by La Prairie has been designed as a haven for pure relaxation. Three treatment pavilions with double beds are isolated in the garden and surrounded by tropical nature. The Spa offers a variety of luxurious treatments, such as the well-known Jari Menari (dancing fingers) massage. In the Meditation Pavilion internationally trained yoga professionals teach Qi Gong and Self Shiatsu.

Additionally, the resort also offers active watersports, such as kayaking, snorkelling, canoeing and pedalos. Customised excursions to other islands by boat or helicopter can be organized by the Maia team. Walks along the 500 metre white sandy beach or through the tropical mountain forest gives an insight into the nature of the island.

If you’re looking to renew your body, mind and soul, it’ll be hard to beat the world-class Maia Resort and Spa. Just be prepared to shell out the $3000/night price for this dream travel destination.

This strikingly contemporary InterContinental in the French Polynesia consists of 80 identical over water villas, which extend in to the warm lagoon like two claws, with the only differences being the views–of the lagoon, the beach, or Mount Otemanu. Floor-to-ceiling windows, Lucite ceiling fans, bug tubs overlooking the water, and bathrooms with black slate floors relect the clean modern aesthetic throughout.

The atmosphere is more South Beach than South Pacific, down to the stylish clad reception staff and shirtless cabana boys by the infinity-edge pool. In a savvy environmental move, the sort pimps in cold seawater to feed the air-conditioning system and for use at the spa.

A stay here might run you run you $1500/night with a minimum four-night stay, but you’ll be hard pressed to find a more exclusive and exotic retreat.