World’s Most Popular Luxury Hotel Brands

A new study by Luxury Branding, a London-based consultancy that specializes in the global luxury market, reveals a fresh and unexpected ranking of the most popular high-end hotels and resorts worldwide for 2015. Surprising highlights, based on independent analysis of 2.25 million travellers’ reviews, include:

The Ritz-Carlton, owned by hotel giant Marriott International, takes top honors by a substantial margin—particularly impressive given its large network of nearly 90 properties and nearly 40,000 employees worldwide

“Traditional” luxury marks, including Oberoi Hotels & Resorts, Raffles Hotels & Resorts and Shangri-La Hotels and Resorts, dominate the Top 10. These classic, high-end brands generally outrank less conservative luxury brands such as Firmdale, EDITION and Andaz. So-called luxury “lifestyle” brands, including Morgans Hotel Group and W Hotels Worldwide, fare considerably worse by missing out on the Top 50 entirely

Some of the industry’s most established and best-known names fail to make the Top 10, including Four Seasons Hotels and Resorts (#13), The Peninsula Hotels (#20), St. Regis (#26) and Waldorf Astoria Hotels & Resorts (#50)

Luxury Branding’s study is based on its independent analysis of more than 2.25 million public reviews on TripAdvisor, the world’s largest travel feedback site with 375 million unique monthly visitors ranking more than 950,000 hotels and lodgings around the world. The study, which provides a “snapshot” of the entire body of reviews posted up to and including 14 August 2015, represents one of the largest luxury study samples ever analyzed in the hospitality industry. While TripAdvisor graciously allowed Luxury Branding to analyze its publicly available data, the study is not affiliated with, or endorsed by, TripAdvisor

Social media and internet outlets continue to revolutionize the role of consumers in shaping brand perceptions, even at the higher end of the luxury spectrum. Piers Schmidt, Luxury Branding’s founder, said: “The luxury hotel sector, which traditionally has been ranked by industry organizations, travel operators and specialty publications, is becoming democratized by the advent of TripAdvisor and similar portals that allow consumers to act as vocal, real-time critics, champions and commentators.”

Mr. Schmidt noted that despite a persistent industry perception that high-net-worth consumers “don’t write reviews” or engage with social media, digitally native travelers rely both on their own experiences and those of friends and family in making brand decisions. Luxury brand operators that embrace the trend of peer-to-peer reviews and respond thoughtfully and consistently, rather than impulsively, can build greater brand loyalty and transparency among today’s connected and ever more demanding luxury clients.

The Top 10
The World’s Most Popular Luxury Hotel Brands, 2015 are:

The Ritz-Carlton
Oberoi Hotels & Resorts
Raffles Hotel & Resorts
Langham Hotels and Resorts
Rocco Forte Hotels
Dorchester Collection
Capella Hotels and Resorts
Park Hyatt
Shangri-La Hotels and Resorts
Armani Hotels & Resorts

The full Luxury Branding report, which ranks and analyzes the Top 59 Most Popular Luxury Hotel Brands, may be downloaded by visiting www.luxury-branding.com. The report includes background on methodology; select brand analysis; and a discussion of the importance of social media/online consumer reviews to the luxury sector as a whole.

THAILAND: 6 New Hotels for Bangkok

Every month, we tell you which hotel openings you need to know about (and which, inevitably, miss their deadlines). While we have a healthy list of arrivals around the world, there are a few places that are either consistently popular or having a bit of a hotel moment, so “new hotels for…” gives you a rundown of the openings you will want to know about for a particular destination.

And where better to start than Bangkok? Our archives are full of stories from the Thai capital, well worth visiting in its own right and for its fantastic choice of hotels – which are often great value. The next five years will see some big names throw their hat in the ring in the city’s very competitive hotel game. Here are six new hotels you should watch out for:

Rosewood Bangkok: we first talked about this hotel along with Rosewood Beijing and its gorgeous rooms. If Rosewood can give us something equally aesthetically pleasing inside its Bangkok sky villas with plunge pools, we may have to book ourselves that 2017 ticket to Asia right now. That’s when the 146-room hotel on Ploenchit Road will open – above what it should look like, a slender and angular building inspired by the wai, the Thai gesture of greeting and welcome.

Park Hyatt Bangkok: down the road from Rosewood and around the corner from sibling Grand Hyatt Erawan, Park Hyatt Bangkok should open mid next year (that is according to its Facebook page, it’s not even listed as a future destination over on the corporate website). About a year ago, we looked up at its twisting exterior, which will house 173 rooms and 49 suites. Hyatt is motoring on with both Hyatt Regency and Place the year after, but as we said at the time, the real question on our minds is when Andaz follows suit?

The Bangkok Edition: if there could only be one reason to have Bangkok on your radar between now and the end of the decade, it should be this: the pixelated jenga dream that is The Bangkok Edition. Dean & Deluca is already there selling overpriced lattes, but given where construction was at last year it will be at least 2016 before we will be checking in here (though we’d put money on it being later). Meanwhile, The Ritz-Carlton Residences at MahaNakhon, to be found on top of the 150-room hotel, have gone on sale.

Four Seasons Bangkok at Chao Phraya River: the Canadian group did not disappoint with its plans to fill the gap left by its Radjadamri hotel going to Anantara – a 312-room riverside development with 355 residences and rather intriguing architecture. Only just announced, we’d expect this to be ready by 2020, if not the late 2018 currently estimated.

Capella Bangkok: on the books for a long time already, this has been “coming soon” since 2009. We’re hopeful that as part of the Four Seasons development, Capella will have a shot at bringing its 100-suite (yes, all suites) hotel to us over the next few years and along the way build its portfolio – currently a somewhat random list of Singapore, Washington DC, St. Lucia, Ixtapa, and Dusseldorf.


Waldorf Astoria Bangkok: we only discussed this last week, another slender high-rise with both hotel and residences. Wedged in between what was the Four Seasons and the Grand Hyatt on Radjadamri, the Waldorf Astoria will have 170 rooms, which will run up to floor 17 and will be crowned by a sky pool.

Between the six of them, these hotels will bring 1100 brand new hotel rooms to Bangkok over the next five years. We have no doubt that count will go up as the years pass, along with news of renovations at existing properties. Think there are other hotels that should be added? Tell us in the comments.