Anyone’s guest: UK hotel brand rankings for 2026

The UK’s hotel market entered 2026 with demand broadly steady: hotel occupancy in England for the first five months of the year was 75%, in line with the same period in 2025. Stable occupancy, however, sits alongside continued pressure from operating costs and business rates, while prices for restaurants and hotels remained elevated for consumers. With national budget chains, international groups and boutique operators competing for trips, a clearer view of the brands consumers are contemplating can help hospitality marketers and analysts understand where demand is concentrating.

YouGov’s UK hotel brand rankings 2026 use always-on data from YouGov BrandIndex to identify the hotel brands most considered among UK adults likely to use a travel or leisure service in the next 12 months. The analysis also examines year-on-year movement, differences between business and leisure-only travellers, and selected brands’ Value and Quality perceptions.

In this article, we cover:

• Top 15 hotel brands by Consideration among UK adults likely to use a travel or leisure service in the next 12 months
• Year-on-year movement in hotel brand Consideration
• How hotel brand Consideration differs between business and leisure-only travellers
• Which selected UK hotel brands lead on Value and Quality
• Which hotel brands stand out
• How to request deeper hotel brand data and competitor benchmarks
• Methodology behind the rankings

Look out for follow-up rankings exploring how Consideration varies by generation, and which hotel brands lead on Satisfaction among current and former customers. To focus on hotels, Airbnb and VRBO are not included in the rankings.

Which UK hotel brands are most considered in 2026?

Premier Inn ranks first among the included UK hotel brands, with a Consideration score of 54.0% among UK adults likely to use a travel or leisure service in the next 12 months. Travelodge follows in second place at 33.0%.

Holiday Inn ranks third at 26.8%, ahead of Hilton at 25.8% and Marriott at 22.3%. Holiday Inn Express, DoubleTree by Hilton, Ibis, InterContinental (IHG) and Crowne Plaza complete the top 10.

Premier Inn’s lead over Travelodge is 21.0 percentage points. The BrandIndex data does not establish why, but scale may be one contributing factor: Whitbread describes Premier Inn as the UK’s largest hotel brand, with more than 86,000 rooms across around 850 hotels. That nationwide footprint may help keep the brand visible and available across a wide range of travel occasions.

Which UK hotel brands gained the most Consideration year-on-year?

Year-on-year movement compares average Consideration in the current period with the previous 12 months, showing which eligible brands strengthened or weakened among the same target audience.

Among the comparable brands shown in the movement table, Hampton by Hilton records the largest increase, rising 1.0 point year on year. InterContinental (IHG) follows with a 0.5-point gain, while Holiday Inn and Premier Inn each increase by 0.4 points.

Marriott, DoubleTree by Hilton and Hilton each gain 0.3 points. Hilton Garden Inn and Ibis also edge upwards, while Warner Hotels completes the top 10 with a 0.2-point decline; every tracked brand outside this group records a larger year-on-year fall in Consideration.

The data does not establish what drove Hampton by Hilton’s 1.0-point gain. One possible contributor is increased visibility from network expansion: during the measurement period, the brand opened its largest European property in Manchester. The addition of a prominent city-centre location may have widened exposure among both business and leisure travellers, but this remains context rather than a causal explanation.

Which hotel brands do UK business travellers consider most?

Premier Inn ranks first among both business travellers and leisure-only travellers. Its Consideration score is 56.1% among business travellers and 53.1% among leisure-only travellers, a difference of 3.0 points.

Beyond the market leader, traveller type changes the ranking. Hilton’s Consideration score is 32.8% among business travellers, compared with 23.7% among leisure-only travellers. Marriott follows a similar pattern, at 29.3% among business travellers and 20.1% among leisure-only travellers.

Other brands also record higher Consideration among business travellers: DoubleTree by Hilton is 6.3 points higher than among leisure-only travellers, InterContinental (IHG) is 6.1 points higher, and Holiday Inn is 6.0 points higher.

Although this data does not test the reasons for these differences, one plausible factor is that large international groups combine broad city and airport coverage with corporate rates and loyalty tools. Hilton, for example, offers a dedicated business-travel programme with discounted rates and travel-management features. That infrastructure may make its brands easier to use repeatedly across work trips, while the appearance of Hilton, DoubleTree by Hilton and Hilton Garden Inn in the comparison points to the group’s portfolio breadth.

Which UK hotel brands lead on Value and Quality?

Consideration is the percentage of UK adults likely to use a travel or leisure service in the next 12 months who say they would consider a brand when next in market. Value and Quality are Net scores: the percentage giving a positive response minus the percentage giving a negative response, producing a score from -100 to +100.

Premier Inn leads the selected brands on Value, with a Net score of 48.7, and ranks second on Quality at 33.8. Travelodge is second on Value at 28.4, but its Quality Net score is -2.1, a 30.5-point gap between the two measures.

Hilton leads the selected brands on Quality at 40.2. Premier Inn follows at 33.8, ahead of Marriott at 31.9 and DoubleTree by Hilton at 24.6. Crowne Plaza sits close to IHG in the chart, also occupying the higher-Quality, lower-Value area, with a Quality score of 19.0 and a Value score of 2.9.

Which hotel brands stand out across the 2026 UK rankings?

Premier Inn is the clearest all-round leader, sitting distinctly apart from the competitor set in the top-right of the chart. It ranks first for both Consideration and Value while placing second on Quality, a rare strength across both dimensions that is reflected in its No. 1 Consideration position. More broadly, the chart suggests only a weak relationship between perceived Value and Quality, with most brands tending to be more aligned with one of the two rather than both.

Hilton leads on Quality and records notably higher Consideration among business travellers, while Marriott, DoubleTree by Hilton and other international groups also benefit from strong quality perceptions but are less competitive on Value. Travelodge presents the opposite profile: it ranks second for both Consideration and Value but has a negative Quality Net score, underlining its more price-led positioning. Hampton by Hilton, meanwhile, records the largest year-on-year gain in Consideration, pointing to growing momentum within a brand portfolio still primarily associated with quality rather than value.

Explore more hotel brand data

These rankings provide a selected view of the UK hotel-sector data available in YouGov BrandIndex. Deeper analysis can help hotel brands understand not only where they rank, but which audiences, competitors and brand-health measures shape their position.

A hotel brand briefing with YouGov can explore:

• Full rankings across tracked hotel and accommodation brands
• Competitor benchmarks across Consideration, Value, Quality, Satisfaction, Recommendation, Reputation and other BrandIndex metrics
• Year-on-year movement across the full eligible comparable universe
• Audience cuts by traveller type, generation, income, travel frequency and other relevant segments
• Brand-perception gaps across percentage-based and Net metrics
• Trend data showing how brand health changes over time

Methodology

This article draws on YouGov BrandIndex data collected in the UK from July 1, 2025 to June 30, 2026. Comparison-period data, where referenced, covers July 1, 2024 to June 30, 2025.

The primary Consideration ranking is based on UK adults likely to use a travel or leisure service in the next 12 months, with a minimum chart base of n > 12,850. The year-on-year movement table uses a minimum current-period base of n > 17,720 and a minimum comparison-period base of n > 18,760. The business-versus-leisure comparison uses minimum bases of n > 1,320 among business travellers and n > 5,340 among leisure-only travellers.

The eligible universe covers hotel brands tracked in YouGov BrandIndex. Brands require a minimum base size of 300. To qualify for the primary ranking, brands must have tracked scores for at least six months (183 days); to qualify for the year-on-year movement ranking, they must have tracked scores for at least 18 months (548 days).

Consideration: When you are in the market next to use a travel or leisure service, from which of the following would you consider?

Value (Net): Which of the following travel or leisure services do you think represents good or poor value for money?

Quality (Net): Which of the following travel or leisure services do you think represents good or poor quality?

Consideration scores are shown as percentages. Value and Quality are shown as Net scores, calculated as the percentage of positive responses minus the percentage of negative responses. Figures are rounded to one decimal place. Changes in Consideration are expressed as point differences.

About YouGov BrandIndex

YouGov BrandIndex is an always-on brand tracking solution that measures consumer perceptions of thousands of brands every day. It helps marketers monitor brand health over time, benchmark performance against competitors, identify audience-specific strengths and weaknesses, and understand how consumer perceptions change.