Anyone who has traveled more than a few times, or just done a really good study of review sites like TripAdvisor, realizes that some hotel chains are simply better than others. Name, cost and location all come into play when determining how successful a chain is.
So when you’re looking at the big names in hotel chains, which are the most successful? The least? Bag storage company Bounce (we used them and had a good experience) aimed to find out.
The data they used included hotel review scores, the number of Google searches in the past 12 months, the number of countries where a chain was located, the number of available hotel locations and the annual revenue of the parent company. They also considered average user ratings, popularity, availability, revenue and the number of five-star locations. Information to support these metrics was pulled from BestCompany, Facebook, Trustpilot, Google Keyword Planner, Wikipedia, Gowjo (where applicable) ZoomInfo, DNB and Five Star Alliance. They removed any hotel brands for which the relevant information was unavailable, including Aman Resorts, Hyatt Hotels and Ibis.
Here’s what they determined, as reported in October 2024, using 10 as the best score possible:
(Of course, before we start, we’d be remiss if we didn’t mention this place, that prides itself on being “the worst hotel in the world” 
but to be honest, it probably isn’t [and isn’t a chain]).
The most successful hotel chains in the world
3. Four Seasons: Hotel chain score: 6.33/10
Luxury hotel chain Four Seasons comes in third place as one of the world’s best hotel chains. Four Seasons Hotels Limited was founded in 1960 and is headquartered in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. Interestingly, the luxury hotel chain doesn’t own any of its properties; it operates them on behalf of real estate owners and developers.
The hotel brand has 121 locations across 47 countries; 101 of those locations are rated as 5-star hotels. Of note, Four Seasons Resort Maui recently served as the filming location for HBO’s hit, The White Lotus.
In the previous 12 months, there had been 955,500 Google searches worldwide for Four Seasons hotels. The chain makes an estimated revenue of $2.1 billion.
2. Holiday Inn (6.83/10)
Proving that the “most successful” hotel brand isn’t necessarily the most expensive one, Holiday Inn comes in at a solid #2.
Founded in 1952, Holiday Inn is an American chain of hotels based in Atlanta, and a brand of InterContinental Hotels Group, which has its headquarters in Denham, Buckinghamshire, England. The founder, Kemmons Wilson, was inspired to build a motel after being disappointed by the poor quality of roadside accommodations during a family road trip – here’s more about that experience. The moniker of the brand is a joking reference to the 1942 musical film of the same name.
Holiday Inn was purchased by UK-based Bass in 1988. Bass changed its name to Six Continents in 2000, and divided into 2 companies, one of which was IHG, in 2003. Holiday Inn is currently under the IHG brand.
Despite having 1,249 hotels in over 50 countries, Holiday Inn has no 5-star locations. Its annual revenue is $6 billion and there have been a whopping 25,426,000 Google searches for the Holiday Inn brand in the past year – more than any other brand on Bounce’s list.
1. Hilton Hotels (8.00/10)
Hilton Hotels & Resorts (formerly known as Hilton Hotels) was founded in the U.S. by Conrad Hilton in 1919. The brand is targeted at both business and leisure travelers with locations in major city centers, near airports, convention centers, and popular vacation destinations around the world.
Deemed to be the most successful brand in the world, there were 8.75 million searches in the last 12 months for Hilton Hotels & Resorts. Of the 610+ properties in 98 countries across 6 continents, 7 of them are 5-star resorts. The brand’s annual revenue is roughly $3.3 billion.
The least successful hotel chains in the world
3. Raffles Hotels (3.25/10)
Raffles Hotels & Resorts is a chain of luxury hotels that traces its roots to 1887 with the opening of the original Raffles Hotel in Singapore. The brand was purchased by Accor in 2015, as part of the FRHI acquisition that also included the Fairmont and Swissotel chains.
There are 24 Raffles hotels in total, which can be found in Asia, the Middle East, Europe and the United States. 11 of them are 5-star properties. Bounce suggests that the brand’s limited availability of all chains on the list is what makes it the third least successful. There were 605 million Google searches for Raffles in the past year. Their annual revenue is $90.0 million.
2. Econo Lodge (2.17/10)
Founded in 1969 and the second-largest brand in the Choice Hotels system, Econo Lodge is an economy motel chain based in the United States and Canada. The hotel brand can often be found near highways.
Not surprisingly, none of Econo Lodge’s 750 or so properties are 5-star resorts. Their annual revenue is just shy of $394K. However, there was an impressive 4.1 million Google searches for the brand in the past year.
1. Park Plaza Hotels (2.0/10)
Park Plaza Hotels & Resorts, formerly Park Plaza International Hotels, Inns and Resorts and commonly known as just Park Plaza, is a hotel chain that runs several hotel groups as franchises. It was established in 1986 as a company and acquired by Olympus Real Estate in 1997. Since 2019, it’s been under the Radisson umbrella of hotels.
With roughly 150 locations mainly situated in Europe, Asia and the Middle East, the Park Plaza chain has more limited availability than most of the hotel brands Bounce looked at. None of the locations earn 5 stars.
Park Plaza Hotels received the lowest number of worldwide Google searches in the last year out of all hotel chains on Bounce’s list – just over 150,000. The brand’s annual revenue is $172.7 million.
Bounce offers a few more tidbits from their study, such as:
- The best/worst reviewed hotel chains in the world
- The most/least in demand hotel chains in the world
- The most/least luxurious hotel chains in the world
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