The World’s 50 Best Hotels will return to London, UK, for its third edition. The event will feature a multi-day programme, culminating in the industry’s most highly anticipated annual awards ceremony. This will take place on Thursday, 30 October at Old Billingsgate.
New for 2025, 50 Best is pleased to announce several updates. These include the appointment of four new Academy Chairs. As well as the launch of a new Special Award, and the debut of an extended 51–100 list. This additional list will be announced ahead of the main awards.
The event programme and awards ceremony will once again bring together the global travel and hospitality community. Together, they will celebrate the finest hotel experiences in the world. The ranking highlights exceptional stays that inspire consumers, travellers, and hoteliers alike. Details of the full multi-day event schedule will be announced soon.
This year, four new Academy Chairs have been added to the 50 Best Hotels Academy. The total number of Chairs will increase from nine in 2024 to thirteen in 2025. Each Chair has been chosen for their expertise in the travel scene of their respective region. As well as their strong connections within the hotel sector.
With the addition of four new regions, the voting Academy has expanded. The number of voters will grow from 600 to more than 800. This allows for a broader and more diverse group of voices to shape the 2025 list of The World’s 50 Best Hotels.
The expansion of the Academy and the appointment of new Chairs aim to create a more dynamic voting system. It ensures a wider global reach in both voters and the hotels that are recognised.
The new 2025 Academy Chair appointments are as follows:
Camilla Guebur, Latin America South
São Paulo-based Guebur’s career began when she travelled the world as an international model and TV actor. Since, she has become one of Brazil’s most renowned content creators, written travel features for Vogue Brazil and now hosts a travel and wine TV show.
Hrvoje Petrić, Central and Eastern Europe
Based in Zagreb, Petrić is a travel and food journalist. He has visited more than 80 countries and written stories for titles including Vogue Adria, ELLE and StoryBook.
Samantha Brooks, US and Canada West
Brooks is LA born, raised and based, and began her career at Robb Report covering home design and real estate all over the world. Since, her work has appeared in Bloomberg, Conde Nast Traveler, Travel + Leisure, and more and she is currently the editor in chief of Curator.
Wendy Watta, Africa
Watta, based in Nairobi, Kenya, is a freelance travel writer. Her work features in Conde Nast Traveler, Lonely Planet, Fodors, Virtuoso, Msafiri and more. She was previously a newspaper columnist and editor of two African travel and food magazines.
The full list of Academy Chairs can be seen here.
To complement this expansion, The World’s 50 Best Hotels will recognise more hotels than ever before with the inaugural announcement of hotels ranked between 51st and 100th. This list will be revealed in the weeks before the glittering awards ceremony, highlighting more destinations and more hotels on the global scene.
Special Awards
The list of Special Awards will expand in 2025 with the introduction of the Johnnie Walker Art of Design Award. This new award recognises how hotel design goes beyond architecture. It celebrates spaces that create a rich, multi-sensorial experience for guests. Thoughtful design can transform the expected into something truly extraordinary.
Every hotel ranked in the 1–50 list, as well as those featured in the new 51–100 list, will be eligible to apply. Each application will be assessed using a specific set of design criteria. These include innovation, sensorial immersion, experience curation, ecological sustainability, and cohesive aesthetics.
Entries will be reviewed by a panel of industry experts alongside senior members of the 50 Best team. The winner of the Johnnie Walker Art of Design Award will be revealed live at the ceremony in London on Thursday, 30 October.
Emma Sleight, Head of Content for The World’s 50 Best Hotels, shares her thoughts:
“We are thrilled to bring the third edition of The World’s 50 Best Hotels back to London. As a global hub with a dynamic, ever-evolving hotel scene, London is the perfect setting. It’s an ideal place to welcome key figures from across the travel industry and to celebrate the very best in hospitality worldwide.
“As hotels continue to innovate, The World’s 50 Best Hotels 2025 marks an important step forward. The expanded Voting Academy, with new Academy Chairs and regional representation, will bring more voices into the fold. The debut of the 51–100 list and the addition of new Special Awards will allow us to honour even more aspects of the hotel experience.”
Highlights of the event programme
Highlights for the event programme will include a ‘Welcome to London’ event and the Opening Banquet, which takes place the night before the reveal of The World’s 50 Best Hotels 2025, giving the hoteliers behind the 100 listed properties the opportunity to meet with their peers from around the world. Following the success of the inaugural #50BestTalks: Unpacked event, this thought leadership forum will once again make up part of The World’s 50 Best Hotels 2025 line-up. #50BestTalks: Unpacked is designed to give hoteliers and travel experts a platform to discuss groundbreaking, industry-leading trends and topics of interest. Events will culminate with the captivating awards ceremony at the new venue of Old Billingsgate which will feature red-carpet arrivals and interviews, a drinks reception and the ceremony and countdown itself. The awards will be followed by a press conference with representatives from The World’s Best Hotel 2025.
The ranking will be complemented by a host of special awards and will reflect the very best travel experiences around the globe, collated from the votes of more than 800 anonymous experts. This voting panel – the 50 Best Hotels Academy – comprises a balanced mix of hoteliers, travel journalists, educators and seasoned luxury travellers, led by a group of industry-leading Academy Chairs. In the months leading up to the awards, special award winners will be announced as well as the first ever 51-100 list of The World’s 50 Best Hotels.
Hotels worldwide are eligible
Any style of hotel worldwide is eligible to be voted for; it does not have to fit any criteria or tick any pre-ordained boxes to be considered. The awards are not ‘pay to play’ – meaning the venues themselves cannot and do not have to pay to enter the awards, nor will they have to buy tickets to the events or invest any fiscal sum in the nomination process.
How the 50 Best voting works
The 13 Academy Chairs each select a voting panel from their region, ensuring a balance of hoteliers, travel journalists, hotel educators and seasoned luxury travellers. Each Academy member can vote for any hotel they have stayed in around the world, irrespective of their home region. Each voter casts seven votes for hotels in order of preference based on stays experienced in the two-year voting period. Voting is carried out individually and strictly confidentially on a secure site and remains confidential before the list announcement. Academy Chairs are not privy to, nor have any knowledge of, the votes cast by the voters in their respective regions; furthermore, they are not official spokespeople for the 50 Best brand. Additional information on the Academy Chairs and how the voting works is available on the 50 Best FAQs page here.
The Academy is the mechanism used to create The World’s 50 Best Hotels list. None of the employees of 50 Best nor any sponsors associated with the awards has any influence over the results. To ensure the more than 800-voter-strong Academy provides a fair representation of the global hotel scene, the Academy Chairs are split across 13 geographical regions. Each Chair is selected as an expert on the travel scene in their region, with outstanding hotel sector contacts. These Chairs each select a voting panel, ensuring a balanced selection of hoteliers, travel journalists, hotel educators, business travellers and consumer travel aficionados. A minimum of 25% of the panel will be renewed each year. All voters, aside from the Academy Chairs, will remain anonymous to eliminate the possibility of lobbying.
