The Sanctuary Awarded the Mobil Five Star Award

For the first time, the Mobil Travel Guide has bestowed the coveted Mobil Five Star Award upon The Sanctuary at Kiawah Island Golf Resort. The Sanctuary is one of only four new properties on the list of 41 North American and Mexican hotels, resorts, and inns that will hold the Five Star distinction for 2009.

Mobil also recognized The Sanctuary’s spa with its separate Five Star rating for hotel spas, making it only the third spa to achieve this designation. The Sanctuary is now one of only two properties with separate hotel and spa Five Star ratings; the Mandarin Oriental in New York is the other.

“It is an honor to receive these distinguished and coveted awards,” said Roger Warren, president of Kiawah Island Golf Resort. “They are a tremendous credit to our staff who have worked hard to make The Sanctuary one of the finest destinations in the world in a very short space of time.”

With the new hotel designation, Kiawah Island Golf Resort becomes the first property in North America to have a Mobil Five Star hotel (The Sanctuary), and a golf course rated five stars by Golf Digest (The Ocean Course). The Sanctuary, which features 255 rooms and suites and opened in 2004, also joins its sister properties.

The Jefferson Hotel in Richmond, VA, and The Hermitage Hotel in Nashville, TN, in achieving the coveted Mobil Five Star rating, creating an unrivalled portfolio of independent hotels. All three properties also hold the AAA Five Diamond rating, placing them on an elite list of 31 hotels, resorts, and inns in North America and Mexico to hold AAA’s and Mobil’s highest awards.

The Five Star awards are among the latest in a long list for the Resort. Travel authority Andrew Harper’s Hideaway Report ranks The Sanctuary as top resort hotel in America, while readers of Travel + Leisure currently rate it as the top family resort, second best golf resort, second best hotel spa, and fifth best hotel respectively.

Since its inception in 1958, the Mobil Travel Guide has used an objective set of criteria, unique among leading travel books, that sets national standards yet allows for regional and individual preferences. A carefully selected team of hospitality experts anonymously evaluates the establishments listed in the Guide. Properties must offer a level of experience appropriate to the cost, based on the quality of such items as décor, comfort, amenities, and services.