A husband and wife-run bed and breakfast in Busselton has been named as the top rated hotel in Western Australia for the second consecutive year and run within a whisker of winning the national title. 
Baudins of Busselton scored 95.34 points in the national rankings from accommodation comparison website, Trivago, just 0.74 points behind the Beachfront Apartments on Trinity Beach in Queensland. Last year, Baudins was rated 12th nationally.
Owners Linda and Greg Leuzzi were thrilled with the result.
"We have only been in the industry for three years and have been blown away by our success," Greg said. 
He said that apart from improving their Trivago ranking they'd moved up in the rankings on a number of other hotel websites.
"We think our success lies in a number of factors including an extremely high standard of cleanliness, friendliness and, above-all, flexibility," Greg said.
"We don't rush our guests. Check-out is nominally at 10am, but we can still all be sitting around the breakfast table at 11.30am." 
Another Busselton venue made the Australian top 50. Inn The Tuarts Guest Lodge was rated 21st while Albany's The Beach House at Bayside was named12th.
On WA ratings-only other hotel top performers included:
      Margaret River B&B [4th]     Margaret River Guest House [5th]    Fraser Suites Perth [6th]     Windmills Break,Yallingup [7th]     Best Western Premier Hotel [8th]    Edge of the Forest Motel, Margaret River [9th]    The Richardson, Perth [10th]    
The news wasn't as good for some other jewels in WA's destination crown.
Yallingup slid from its 2014 ranking as Australia's premier destination into seventh, but the difference between it and the winner, Montville in Queensland, was less than one point. Margaret River edged back one place into 18th.
Yallingup was, however, the number one rated destination in WA, ahead of Margaret River, Broome, Albany and Kununurra.
Exmouth, Busselton, Dunsborough, Mandurah and Kalbarri made up the other places in the WA top 10.
Nationally, Denmark, Broome, Exmouth and Busselton dropped out of Australia's top 50 destinations altogether: 
Denmark's fall was the most dramatic, having been rated fourth just 12 months ago.
Trivago spokeswoman Bianca Delbao said movement in rankings demonstrated the importance of guest ratings and reviews.
"Guests who have a good experience should share it online. Ratings and review can have a significant impact on online reputation," she said.
Ms Delbao said that some people might be surprised that the big hotel brands did not feature, but that was a reflection of user experience.
"The best of the smaller operators really personalise their service and that's what people remember in their reviews. That's why they continually top the rankings," she said.
???Trivago compiles its rankings based on 200 million ratings from more than 250 online booking websites.
The hotel ranking only scores hotels with more than 350 ratings.The destination ranking only examines places with more than 1000 ratings and more than 12 hotels.
Ratings data is based on live figures from   September 2015.
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