Few travel accolades carry the reach of the Travel + Leisure World's Best Awards. Every year, T+L readers vote on the hotels, resorts, cities, islands, airlines and cruise lines they have experienced, and the results ripple across hotel marketing for the following twelve months. This guide explains what the awards actually measure, who won most recently, how they differ from inspected ratings, and how to use the list without being misled by it.
Reading on the go?
We send the best of these guides, plus special offers, in one Sunday email.
What are the Travel + Leisure World's Best Awards?
The World's Best Awards are Travel + Leisure's annual reader survey, the results of which are announced each July and published in the magazine's August issue. Over a voting window that runs for several months, subscribers rate the places they have actually stayed and travelled, scoring on criteria such as rooms, service, food, location and value. T+L then aggregates those scores into a sprawling set of rankings: a global top hotels list, plus regional cuts (best hotels in Europe, Asia, the Caribbean and so on), best resorts, best safari lodges, best city hotels, best brands, and non-hotel categories including islands, cities, airlines and cruise lines. Because the survey rewards places that readers loved enough to rate highly, a win signals genuine, broad guest affection rather than a marketing budget.
How does the voting methodology work?
The methodology is straightforward, and its strengths and weaknesses both flow from the same fact: readers vote. On the plus side, that means the awards capture the lived guest experience across thousands of real stays, which is exactly the signal you want when a hotel's own website tells you nothing useful. The trade-offs are equally real. The voters are, by definition, T+L subscribers, a self-selecting and relatively affluent audience, so the sample leans toward a certain kind of traveller. Some categories draw small numbers of votes, which can make a single enthusiastic group decisive. And hotels are allowed to encourage their guests to vote, so a property with an organised campaign can outperform a quieter rival of equal quality. None of this makes the list worthless; it means you should read it as informed popularity, not an audit.
Who won the most recent World's Best Awards?
The most recent complete edition is the 2025 World's Best Awards, announced in July 2025. The 2026 winners are released on the same annual July schedule, so treat the 2025 results below as the current confirmed picture until the new list publishes. The headline result was striking: andBeyond Bateleur Camp, a 19-tent safari property on the edge of Kenya's Masai Mara, was named the World's Best Hotel with a perfect reader score of 100. Turkey's Raffles Istanbul placed second, and the global top five was rounded out by Mfuwe Lodge (the Bushcamp Company) in Zambia, Fauchon L'Hotel in Paris, and Kilindi Zanzibar in Tanzania. The safari-heavy top of the list was a notable theme in itself.
Beyond the single top hotel, Capella Hotels and Resorts was named the World's Best Hotel Brand, and Auberge Resorts Collection placed a high share of its portfolio on the featured lists. The Leading Hotels of the World collected more than seventy individual honours across categories, a reminder of how deep the membership-collection brands run in reader affection. Outside hotels, Paros topped the World's Best Islands, Santa Fe took World's Best U.S. City, and Mount Desert Island in Maine won World's Best U.S. Island.
What did the 2025 results signal?
Two patterns are worth reading into the 2025 list. First, small, experience-led properties dominated the very top. A 19-tent safari camp and two more bush lodges in the global top five is a clear vote for intimacy, place and once-in-a-lifetime experience over the scale and polish of a grand city hotel. Reader-voted awards reward emotional peaks, and a few days on the Masai Mara delivers those more reliably than a flawless but familiar urban stay. Second, the strength of membership collections, from the Leading Hotels of the World's seventy-plus honours to Auberge's high hit rate, shows how much these curated brands shape reader affection. The practical lesson for booking is not to over-index on the single number one, which can swing wildly year to year on the strength of one category, but to mine the regional and category winners, where the signal is steadier and more comparable to the trip you are actually planning.
How does T+L compare with Forbes, AAA and Conde Nast?
The single most useful thing to understand is what kind of award you are reading. Reader-voted lists measure reputation and love; inspected ratings measure standards. The two agree often, but not always, and the smartest booking uses both.
| Award | How it is decided | What it tells you |
|---|---|---|
| T+L World's Best Awards | Reader vote, annual | What guests loved; broad reputation |
| Conde Nast Traveler Readers' Choice / Gold List | Reader vote plus editor picks | Reputation, plus an editorial shortlist |
| Forbes Travel Guide Star Rating | Anonymous professional inspection | Consistency of service against fixed standards |
| AAA Diamond Rating | Professional inspection | Facilities and service quality, verified |
A hotel that wins a T+L award and holds a Forbes Five-Star or AAA Five-Diamond rating is about as safe a bet as hospitality offers, because guest love and inspected consistency are pointing the same way. For a fuller breakdown, see our guide to how hotel awards work and the complete 2026 awards overview.
How should you use the T+L list?
Use the list as a starting point, not a finish line. Four rules make it far more reliable. First, treat a win as a strong candidate to investigate, then verify with recent guest reviews, because the awards lag real conditions by roughly a year and cannot reflect a recent renovation, management change or slip in standards. Second, cross-reference with an inspected rating; agreement between reader love and professional inspection is the clearest signal of quality. Third, weight the regional and category lists over the single global number one, since a best-in-region result reflects more direct, like-for-like comparison than a global ranking that mixes safari camps with city palaces. Fourth, match the award to your trip: a general World's Best win says little about whether a hotel suits a honeymoon, a family holiday or a business stay.
That last point is where our own rankings come in. The T+L list will tell you a property is broadly adored; it will not tell you which room to book or whether it is right for your specific occasion. For that, browse our occasion guides for honeymoons, family holidays and business trips, where every pick is scored for a defined traveller.
When is the list most, and least, useful?
The awards are at their best when you are exploring an unfamiliar region and want a trustworthy shortlist of broadly loved places, when you want to confirm a hotel's reputation across more than one source, or when you are a risk-averse booker who would rather follow the crowd than gamble. They are at their weakest for niche occasions, for choosing between specific room categories at a single property, and for any hotel that has changed materially in the past year, where a fresh set of reviews is the only reliable corrective. Read that way, the T+L World's Best Awards are one of the most useful reputation signals in travel, provided you never let them make the final decision alone.
Frequently asked questions
What are the Travel + Leisure World's Best Awards?
They are Travel + Leisure's annual reader-voted rankings, in which subscribers rate hotels, resorts, cruise lines, airlines, cities and islands they have experienced. Winners are announced each July and published in the August issue, spanning a global top hotels list plus regional and category awards.
Which hotel won the most recent World's Best Awards?
In the 2025 World's Best Awards, the most recent complete edition, andBeyond Bateleur Camp in Kenya's Masai Mara was named the World's Best Hotel with a perfect reader score of 100. Capella Hotels and Resorts was named the top hotel brand, and Raffles Istanbul ranked second worldwide.
How reliable are the Travel + Leisure awards?
They reliably reflect what T+L readers loved, which is genuinely useful, but they are opinion, not inspection. Self-selection, small samples in some categories and hotels that campaign for votes can skew results, so treat them as a strong shortlist rather than a verdict.
How is Travel + Leisure different from a Forbes or AAA rating?
Travel + Leisure is reader-voted, so it measures guest love and reputation. Forbes Travel Guide and AAA use trained, often anonymous inspectors against fixed service standards. A hotel that wins a T+L award and also holds a Forbes Five-Star or AAA Five-Diamond rating is reliably excellent.
For more, see the awards pillar, our world's best hotels 2026 awards list, and the Conde Nast Traveler Gold List 2026.