The World’s 50 Best Hotels Awards Head to Paris in September 2026
The global hotel ranking moves from London to Paris for the first time, with voting changes and new Academy leadership ahead of the 2026 awards.
Photo: Juan Ordonez / Unsplash
The World’s 50 Best Hotels will take place in Paris in September 2026, marking the first time the awards ceremony has been held outside London since the program launched in 2023.
The fourth edition of the global hotel ranking will unfold over a week of invite-only events in the French capital beginning Sept. 14, culminating in the official reveal of the 2026 list. Organizers say the shift reflects the awards’ growing scale and Paris’s continued role as a center of international hospitality.
“Bringing The World’s 50 Best Hotels to Paris—the first time the awards have been held outside London since its launch in 2023—is incredibly exciting for us as an organisation and for the global travel community,” said Emma Sleight, the head of content for The World’s 50 Best Hotels. “We wanted a host city that embodied timeless hospitality, and one that is home to some of the world’s most exceptional hotels, so Paris was a natural choice.”
The awards program is built around a ranking determined by The World’s 50 Best Hotels Academy, a panel of more than 800 anonymous voters drawn from across the global hospitality ecosystem. The group includes hoteliers, travel journalists, educators, and seasoned travelers, with representation divided across 13 geographic regions.
For the 2026 edition, the organization has also introduced several structural updates to the voting process. The voting window has been extended from two years to three, allowing voters to consider stays over a longer period and potentially include properties that may not be visited frequently but remain memorable. Voters continue to submit seven ranked hotel selections based on personal stays during the voting window.
The expanded 51–100 list, introduced in 2025, will return again this year. That list will be announced ahead of the main ceremony and will recognize a wider group of properties globally, beyond the final top 50.
Leadership within the Academy is also evolving. Jesse Ashlock, most recently deputy global editorial director and U.S. head of editorial content at Condé Nast Traveler, has been appointed Academy Chair for USA & Canada East. He joins Samantha Brooks, who oversees the USA & Canada West region.
The Paris program will include a series of industry events leading up to the awards reveal. These include a “Welcome to Paris” gathering, an opening banquet the evening before the list announcement, and the return of #50BestTalks: Unpacked, a leadership forum focused on topics affecting the global hospitality industry.
The week will culminate in the official awards ceremony, featuring the countdown of the 2026 ranking, followed by a press conference with representatives from the hotel named No. 1 in the world.
