Mandarin Oriental has held on to its crown as the world’s top luxury hotel brand for a fourth year. Aman, meanwhile, has had a less happy time. It has fallen from second to ninth place. Even a hotel group known for peace and quiet cannot hide from an awkward set of results.

The 2026 list, issued on 27 October by Luxury Travel Intelligence (LTI), puts Mandarin Oriental first with 81.1%. Oetker is close behind on 80.6%, with Bulgari third on 80.2%. Four Seasons takes fourth and Rosewood fifth.

The winner may be the same. The rest of the field has been busy shuffling.

Aman falls seven places after data leak

Aman has slid from second in 2025 to ninth this year, scoring 75.5%. In its news release, LTI links the fall to what it calls a significant client-data breach that it has not addressed.

The data leak is not mere hotel gossip. Have I Been Pwned, a site that tracks such events, says records tied to Aman were made public in April 2026. They held about 215,600 unique email addresses. Some files also held names, phone numbers and other private details. Not all records held the same data.

LTI claims it has not dealt with the breach. The league table alone doesn’t prove that. Still, luxury guests pay for trust as well as fine sheets. An exposed guest list is hardly the sort of room upgrade anyone wants.

Big gains for Oetker, Dorchester and Capella

Oetker rises from fourth to second. Four Seasons moves from sixth to fourth. Dorchester Collection jumps six places to sixth, while Belmond rises four places to seventh.

Capella makes the boldest debut, coming in at eighth. Airelles is also new, taking tenth place. COMO, Jumeirah, and Ritz-Carlton also join the list.

There is less cheer for One&Only, down from tenth to fifteenth. A fine name and a high room rate, it seems, will not keep a brand near the top on its own.

World’s best luxury hotel brands: the full 2026 list

What does LTI’s hotel ranking measure?

LTI doesn’t pick winners by counting five-star guest reviews or admiring fancy suites. It scores each brand as a whole. Its 2026 test weighs 134 points. The top possible score is 4,792 points.

The checks cover service, staff, brand values, and how well hotel firms spend money on new and older sites. LTI says it speaks with hotel bosses, staff and guests. It earns money from members, not from hotel adverts or booking fees.

That does not make the list the final word on every hotel. It is LTI’s own method and judgement, not an audit of each room or a poll of all guests.

For 2026, the list grew from 15 brands to 20. Each must have at least eight hotels to qualify. The process starts each year afresh. LTI also used 130 points of focus in 2025, not 134, so the scores don’t match exactly.

For Australian travel advisers, a simple rule still holds: pick the hotel that suits the guest, not just the one on top of the list. But the rankings make one point plain. Beautiful rooms and polished service matter. So does keeping a guest’s data safe.

By: Octavia Koo – © 2026.

Read Time: 4 minutes.

Author Bio:

Octavia Koo arrived in Australia in the early eighties with little fuss and a good eye. Sydney suited her. At UNSW, she studied Arts, then found her footing in graphic design before drifting, quite naturally, into the digital side of things, building websites and shaping words that made people want to stay.

Singapore followed, and with it, the fast pace of tourism platforms and ITB Asia. Long before SEO became a buzzword, Octavia understood how stories travelled online. That’s where she met Stephen, and the seed for something more was planted.
A few years later, she joined Stephen’s EGT Media.

Today, Octavia works with quiet assurance, blending art, instinct and experience to produce stories that don’t shout; they simply work and linger.

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