The third article in YouGov’s UK hotel brand rankings 2026 series follows Anyone’s guest: UK hotel brand rankings for 2026 and the generational follow-up, turning from booking consideration to customer experience: which hotel brands leave their current and former customers most satisfied?
A hotel brand may prove to be popular based on consideration to book – but Customer satisfaction highlights how current and former customers rate the brand after visiting a hotel.
Based on brand tracking data from YouGov BrandIndex, we explore the UK hotel brands with the highest customer satisfaction scores in 2026, how scores have changed year-on-year, and how satisfaction differs between current and former customers.
Hotel brands with the highest customer satisfaction scores in 2026
Premier Inn tops the ranks for satisfaction among UK adults who are current or former customers of each brand, with a net Satisfaction score of 74.4 in 2026.
InterContinental (IHG) follows in second place at 67.1, ahead of hub by Premier Inn at 65.7 and DoubleTree by Hilton at 64.9. Marriott rounds out the top five, with a Customer Satisfaction score of 61.5.
The top 10 also includes Hampton by Hilton, Crowne Plaza, Hilton, Hilton Garden Inn, and Warner Hotels.
Satisfaction vs. Consideration: How the rankings compare
As seen in our UK hotel brand consideration rankings, Premier Inn leads the way. But customer satisfaction changes the shape of the ranking behind the leader. Travelodge and Holiday Inn rank second and third for Consideration, yet neither appears in the top 10 for customer satisfaction among current and former customers. Instead, InterContinental (IHG) and hub by Premier Inn rank second and third on Satisfaction, showing how the view of hotel brand performance can shift once the analysis moves from booking consideration to customer experience.
Which brands improved or declined year-on-year
Looking at year-on-year change to customer satisfaction scores, the picture is relatively stable. The top nine brands only fluctuate by 2.3 points. Crowne Plaza records the largest increase, rising 1.7 percentage points from 2025 to 2026.
DoubleTree by Hilton also gains the second most ground, increasing 1.1 points. Hampton by Hilton rises 0.7 points, while InterContinental (IHG) increases 0.5 points. Marriott is effectively stable, improving slightly from 61.4 to 61.5.
Not every brand in the top 10 recorded year-on-year improvement. Warner Hotels posts the largest decline among the 2026 top 10, falling 7.2 points year-on-year. Hilton Garden Inn and Hilton also see small decreases in their customer satisfaction scores.
Premier Inn also declines, down 1.8 points year-on-year, but it remains clearly ahead of the field. Its 2026 Satisfaction score of 74.4 leaves a 7.3-point gap over second-ranked InterContinental (IHG). By comparison, the brands in second, third and fourth place are much closer together: InterContinental (IHG), hub by Premier Inn and DoubleTree by Hilton are separated by only 2.2 points. That makes Premier Inn’s lead look relatively resilient, even as its score edges down from last year.
Hotel customer satisfaction among current and former customers
The gap between current and former customers is one of the more revealing parts of customer satisfaction. Current customers reflect those who have visited a hotel in the last 12 months, while former customers reflect those who have visited a hotel prior to that.
While current customers tend to record higher scores across all brands and sectors, some brands see a much sharper drop-off among former customers than others.
Warner Hotels records the largest current versus former customer gap, scoring 77.7 among current customers and 46.4 among former customers, a difference of 31.3 points. Marriott also shows a sizeable divide, with a current customer score of 85.5 compared with 56.9 among former customers, a 28.6 point gap.
Hampton by Hilton follows with a 24.7-point difference, scoring 81.0 among current customers and 56.3 among former customers. The pattern is less pronounced, but still substantial, for Premier Inn and InterContinental (IHG). Premier Inn scores 87.6 among current customers and 66.8 among former customers, a 20.8-point gap, while InterContinental (IHG) records 82.7 among current customers and 62.8 among former customers, a 19.9-point gap.
Looking across the two groups also reinforces the strength of Premier Inn. It records the highest Satisfaction score among both current and former customers, suggesting that its lead is not only driven by recent customer experiences but also holds up among those whose last interaction with the brand was further in the past.
The split also adds nuance for brands further down the overall ranking. Marriott ranks fifth for customer satisfaction overall, but among current customers it is a close second to Premier Inn. That suggests its recent customer experience is especially strong, even if former-customer sentiment pulls its overall score lower.
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, but how Satisfaction varies by customer status, audience group, competitor set and brand-health measure.
In a hotel brand briefing, YouGov can walk you through:
- Full customer satisfaction rankings across tracked hotel and accommodation brands
- Competitor benchmarks across Consideration, Value, Quality, Satisfaction, Recommendation, Reputation and other BrandIndex metrics
- Current-versus-former customer comparisons for selected brands
- Year-on-year movement across the full sector
- Audience cuts by generation, traveller type and customer status
Methodology
This article draws on YouGov BrandIndex UK data collected from July 1, 2025 to June 30, 2026. The customer satisfaction ranking covers UK adults who are current or former customers of each brand, with a minimum chart base of n> 1,120. The comparison period is June 1, 2024, to June 30, 2025, with a minimum chart base of n> 1,180.
The current-versus-former customer comparison covers current customers and former customers of the displayed brands. Minimum bases are n> 237 among current customers and n> 840 among former customers.
Customer satisfaction is reported as a Net score, calculated as the percentage of respondents who say they are satisfied customers of a brand minus the percentage who say they are dissatisfied customers. Scores are shown to one decimal place. Changes are expressed as score-point differences.
Metric question: Customer satisfaction (Net): Of which of the following travel brands would you say that you are a satisfied or dissatisfied customer?
Reserve, by Warner Hotels is excluded from the year-on-year Customer Satisfaction comparison because no previous-period score is available as it has not been tracked in BrandIndex for the minimum number of days required.
Disclosure: The data analysis in this article was conducted by YouGov with the assistance of AI tools.
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.