When it comes to luxury hotels, it seems we’re no longer all that impressed with thread counts, spa sizes, plate-sized shower heads, and other things the hotel marketing people obsess about. It’s more intangible than that - service matters most.

That’s the finding of a new hotel satisfaction survey from J.D. Power and Associates. This quote from spokesperson Linda Hirneise says it all.

“With the hotel industry rapidly approaching product and price parity, the key differentiator between a good hotel experience and a truly outstanding experience is the quality of service delivered by the hotel staff,” said Hirneise. “Staff-related problems are controllable, and significant problems with staff make it difficult, if not impossible, to deliver great service and high levels of satisfaction. Hotels have dedicated tremendous resources for renovations and improvements of their properties in efforts to improve satisfaction, but all of this may be for naught if service excellence is remiss.”

That’s what our experienced travel writers are looking at most closely when they review hotels for Luxury Latin America. A hotel can bombard you with an amenity list that’s 10 pages long, but that hotel can still be shown up by a 10-room B&B down the street if the service is lax.

In other key findings, Ritz-Carlton was cited as the top luxury chain and younger guests are clamoring to stay at hotels that are trying to reduce their impact on the environment.

It looks like Starwood is waking up to the growth in Latin America and has announced some major expansion plans. Some of the hotels look like they’ll be the usual ho-hum corporate cookie-cutter types, but a few may be worth a look.

St. Regis Hotel, Mexico City
Opening sometime in 2008 and located on Reforma Avenue. As is all the rage these days, the 189 rooms will be joined by 100 residences for sale. (If they other St. Regis properties are any clue, residences will be far nicer and have better amenities than we lowly hotel guests receive.)

St. Regis Resort, Punta Mita
Same story here, with a mix of private villas and a hotel. With a 2008 opening around the corner from the Four Seasons Punta Mita. this will bring some serious competition to the prime coastal land north of Puerto Vallarta. “The hotel will feature 120 magnificently appointed guest rooms and suites, each with its own outside shower, and approximately 65 luxury villas for both fractional and whole ownership.” Look for a 10,000 square foot luxurious spa and fitness center.” (Funny though, last time I had a room with an outdoor shower it was less than $5 a night in Bali.)

The Westin Resort & Spa Roatan, Honduras
The pickings are slim for Honduras luxury hotels, so this is a welcome announcement, even if it does mean the beginning of the end for “no-chain-hotels” Roatan Island. Scheduled to open in 2008, this is also a huge hotel by Roatan standards, with 164 guest rooms, plus the requisite “individual residences and villas” to create a chair shortage at the pool.

The St. Regis Resort & Residences, Costa Rica
Not sure yet where this is in Costa Rica, but opening in 2008 in an ocean-front location, with 133 luxury guest rooms, each with a spacious outdoor terrace. This sounds worth a visit: “the cliff-side Presidential Suite boasts three large bedrooms, a private pool and spectacular views of both the jungle and the Pacific Ocean.”

W Santiago Hotel, Chile
I’ve been wondering when Starwood would see what’s going on in Buenos Aires and finally open up a W somewhere down here. Here’s the flack line: “Scheduled to open in 2008, the W Santiago Hotel, Chile is poised to become Santiago’s ultimate flirty escape and a destination in itself.”

If Starwood has bought your loyalty with their rewards program and you’re eyeing the points on your trip south, see the full press release here.

Travel & Leisure’s August ‘07 issue has the results of their annual reader’s poll. It lists the top vote-getting hotels all over the world, including the 25 best hotels from Latin America.

I guess it shows we don’t pick what we cover out of thin air because we have already reviewed 21 of the 25 hotels that made the list. Two of the remaining ones I will be reviewing myself in October, in Zihutanejo, Mexico. This includes the number 1 winner, La Casa Que Canta, nosing out the number 2 one Four Seasons Buenos Aires.

For those keeping score, number 3 was Esperanza in Los Cabos, number 4 was the Ritz-Carlton in Santiago, and number 4 was One & Only Palmilla in Los Cabos.

Take the exact placement of these winners with a giant chunk of rock salt. Few people who travel frequently in that region would put the Ritz-Carlton Santiago above the Park Hyatt in Mendoza (# 12) or the Hotel Monasterio in Cuzco (#19), but hotels in large cities or major resort areas tend to get more votes than the others. The important thing is, we try to present a rounded view of the best places to stay, leaving it up to you to decide which one is right for you, whether the place is #4, #24, or isn’t on the list.

By the way though, two we covered showed up on T&L’s list of Top 15 Hotels $250 or Less. They were Blancaneaux Lodge and Lodge at Chaa Creek, both in Belize.

We’re starting to read more about Quito in the travel news, which usually means either A) the local tourism office has started to get their act together and spend a significant chunk of money on PR and advertising or B) a new luxury hotel has opened up (or is about to). Call us cynical, but you seldom see much in the likes of Travel & Leisure unless these elements are in place.

They are in place in Quito, as recently noted in the Globorati blog. “No longer just a pit-stop on the way to the world’s most famous tortoises, Quito’s World Heritage historic center is reaping the benefits of a $200-million, seven-year makeover.”

If you’re one of those poor saps like me that is living in the land of the plunging dollar, there’s another reason to like Quito: the U.S. dollar is their currency, so no painful decline there.

We think you’ll be hearing more about this city in the years to come, especially since the city’s tourism bureau just hired they guy who wrote our Ecuador luxury hotel reviews.

Well, the hype will hopefully die down now that the contest is over to name the new Seven Wonders of the World. Three of them are in Latin America:

Chichen Itza in Mexico

Machu Picchu in Peru

Christ the Redeemer statue in Rio, Brazil

I detect a bit of ballot-stuffing on the last one, but any contest like this is bound to be hotly contested no matter how the votes come in. I like Wendy Perrin’s post on the subject, noting that you’d have to be living under a rock to not know these places are worth a stop. Many would argue that they are already getting way too many visitors as it is, putting a major strain on what made them great to start with.

Frankly though, I’m glad that Chichen Itza made the cut instead of Tikal. We don’t need more tour buses heading to the latter, filled with obese people who can’t make the 20-minute trek through the jungle to get to the start of the pyramids. Difficulty can be a good thing when it comes to preservation.