The second article in YouGov’s UK hotel rankings 2026 series follows Anyone’s guest: UK hotel rankings for 2026 and looks at how hotel brand consideration varies by generation, with additional audience context from YouGov Profiles.
Hotel brands do not compete with one audience only. A brand that is widely considered by older travellers may sit in a different position among younger adults. YouGov’s hotel brand rankings show how Consideration differs across generations among UK adults who are likely to use a travel or leisure service in the next 12 months. The analysis compares the top 15 hotel brands overall with their scores among Gen Z, Millennials, Gen X, and Baby Boomers+.
The results show a clear market leader, a stable second-place brand, and a middle tier where the competitive picture changes more noticeably by generation.
Premier Inn leads across all generations
Premier Inn ranks first across all generations.. Its Consideration score reaches 46.9% of Gen Z adults, 52.8% of Millennials, 59.4% of Gen X and 54.1% of Baby Boomers+.
Premier Inn is not only the overall leader; it also remains the first-choice benchmark across younger, middle-aged and older audiences in the chart.
The brand’s lead is greatest among Gen X, where it sits 25.0 percentage points ahead of the second most considered hotel brand, Travelodge. Among Gen Z, the gap is narrower but still substantial, with Premier Inn at 46.9% and Travelodge at 30.7%.
Travelodge also shows broad cross-generational reach
While Premier Inn tops the ranks across the board, Travelodge holds second place across all generations. Its scores are also relatively consistent: 30.7% among Gen Z, 32.4% among Millennials, 34.4% among Gen X, and 31.2% among Baby Boomers+.
That makes the top of the generational ranking relatively stable. Premier Inn and Travelodge hold a clear lead across all age groups, showing consistent market position and cross-generation appeal. The middle of the ranking changes more by age group
Beyond the top two brands, the leaderboard starts to shift as we look at consideration among different generations.
For Gen Z adults likely to travel in the next 12 months, IHG’s Holiday Inn ranks in third place – recording a Consideration score of 21.4%. Hilton ranks fourth with 20.8%, while Ibis rounds out the top five with 16.5%. By comparison, Ibis ranks in eight position overall – indicating that the budget hotel chain carries significant appeal among younger in-market consumers.
Millennials likely to travel in the next 12 months show a different line up, with the Hilton in third place (28.5%), Holiday Inn in fourth (28.4), and Marriott taking the fifth spot (22.8%). Consideration among this group is typically higher than their younger counterparts for all hotel brands, indicating a higher propensity for hotel usage in general.
Gen X future likely travellers again show a varied list beyond the two market leaders, with Holiday Inn (28.7%) Hilton (27.9%), and Marriott (26.9%) making up the top five brands. Looking at Baby Boomers+, Holiday Inn (22.8%), Hilton (18.9%) and Best Western (18.8%) complete the shortlist. Best Western ranks as the 11th most considered brand overall, indicating the brand has a significant draw among older likely travellers in the next 12 months.
Some brands beyond the top five also show clear age skews. Crowne Plaza records 20.5% Consideration among Gen X, compared with 5.9% among Gen Z. Warner Hotels performs more strongly among older travellers than among younger groups, reaching 10.9% among Baby Boomers+ compared with 2.7% among Gen Z.
Deeper audience data can help brands explore whether those gaps relate to price perceptions, quality expectations, location, loyalty, previous experience or other travel priorities.
Explore more hotel brand data
These rankings provide a selected view of the hotel-sector data available in YouGov BrandIndex. Deeper analysis can help hotel brands understand not only where they rank overall, but how their position changes by audience.
In a hotel brand briefing, YouGov can explore full rankings across tracked hotel and accommodation brands, competitor benchmarks across BrandIndex metrics, trend data over time, and audience cuts by generation, traveller type, income, customer status and other relevant segments.
Request a hotel brand briefing to understand how your brand performs across generations, competitor sets and additional brand-health measures.
Methodology
This article draws on YouGov BrandIndex data collected from July 1, 2025 to June 30, 2026. The ranking covers UK adults likely to use a travel or leisure service in the next 12 months. Minimum sample sizes are n>17,700 overall, n>1,230 for Gen Z, n>2,290 for Millennials, n>1,410 for Gen X and n>1,130 for Boomers+.
Consideration is reported as the percentage of respondents who would consider a brand the next time they are in the market to use a travel or leisure service. Percentages are shown to one decimal place.
Metric question: Consideration: When you are in the market next to use a travel or leisure service, from which of the following would you consider?
The chart displays the top 15 hotel brands from the overall Consideration ranking. Sample sizes vary by asset and are shown in the notes accompanying each chart.
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.