Rosewood Hong Kong has been named the best hotel in the world for 2026 by The World’s 50 Best Hotels, which revealed its annual ranking at a ceremony in Paris. The harbourfront property, part of the Rosewood group, took the top place on a list that spans Asia, Europe, the Middle East and the Americas. The awards have grown quickly into one of the most watched benchmarks in luxury travel since their launch a few years ago.
Asian hotels dominated the upper reaches of the ranking. Capella Bangkok placed second and the Four Seasons Bangkok at Chao Phraya River came third, giving the Thai capital two entries in the top three. Atlantis The Royal in Dubai took fourth, and Passalacqua, a restored villa on the shore of Lake Como in Italy, rounded out the top five. Resorts and city hotels appeared throughout the rest of the fifty.
British hotels held their place among the 50, all of them in London. Claridge’s, the Mayfair institution, was the highest ranked United Kingdom entry at number 13. Raffles London at The OWO, which occupies the former War Office building on Whitehall, came in at 28. The Connaught, also in Mayfair, secured the final British spot at number 49, keeping the capital represented near the foot of the list.
The ranking is compiled from votes cast by a large panel of hotel experts, industry figures and frequent travellers drawn from around the world. Each voter selects the properties where they have stayed and rated most highly over a set period, and the results are combined to produce the annual order. Organisers present the exercise as a snapshot of where the most talked about hotels are, rather than a fixed measure of quality.
One pattern stood out this year, with city hotels claiming most of the leading positions rather than the remote resorts that often top such lists. For the winners, a high placing brings a reliable lift in bookings and prestige, and hotels frequently promote the result for months afterward. The order also points to Asia’s growing weight in luxury hospitality, with the region supplying several of the names at the very top, including the new number one.
