How this was established
A booking site’s beachfront label counts for nothing here. The position was measured, and then looked at.
1. Measuring
For every hotel we drew the shortest line from the grounds to the OpenStreetMap waterline and counted what that line crosses: through roads, local roads, footpaths, promenades. Elevation comes from the Copernicus model, which makes a clifftop position recognisable. The same input always gives the same result.
2. Looking
A measurement from a single coordinate is an upper bound, not a truth. So every hotel goes past the eye on satellite imagery, and where needed past the hotel’s own photographs. That brings out what a measurement misses: low rocky shores, pebble beaches, seawalls without sand, or a dot placed on the wrong building. 32 of 417 properties have been checked on imagery so far; every hotel page says whether it has been.
3. The rules
The question that settles every borderline case: does the property itself have a sea edge?
- Sand against it, nothing in between: directly on the beach.
- A beach path or promenade in between, or the grounds step down to a lower beach by their own stair: on the sea, direct access.
- Rock, pebbles, a cliff or a seawall, and no sand to lie on: on the sea, no beach.
- No sea edge at all — a through road or a row of other people’s buildings in between — and the hotel is not on this site, however short the walk.
The hotel’s own garden, wall, gate and stair do not count as separation. A deep property running from the road to the water can measure a hundred metres and still be directly on the beach.
What “beach” means
Sand you can lie on. A strip that only dries at low tide, or a metre of sand against a seawall, does not count.
4. What is not finished yet
For 385 properties the category still rests on the measurement alone, and the page says so. The guest score comes from Booking.com. Prices are a snapshot on one fixed date, meant for comparing hotels with each other — not a live price.