Europe to open 307 hotels in 2026

Lodging Econometrics (LE) expects 307 hotels with 39,798 rooms to open across Europe in 2026. Europe opened 112 hotels with 13,914 rooms in the first half. LE forecasts another 195 hotels with 25,884 rooms for the second half.

Forecast cut from 319 openings

LE’s first-quarter report, released on 13 May 2026, projected 319 openings and 44,156 rooms. The latest forecast is lower, but still above the 2025 total of 259 hotels and 31,038 rooms.

Luxury and upper upscale reach record project counts

The luxury chain scale has 187 projects with 21,930 rooms, up 9% by project count year on year. Upper upscale has 304 projects with 50,181 rooms. LE said both project counts were the highest in its European records.

Upscale remains the largest chain scale, with 400 projects and 61,639 rooms.

UK leads with 263 projects

The United Kingdom has 263 projects in the pipeline. Turkey follows with 156, Germany with 146 and France with 117.

Pipeline spans three development stages

Europe’s full pipeline comprises 1,736 projects with 255,976 rooms. At the end of Q2 2026, 773 projects with 116,172 rooms were under construction. Another 332 projects with 50,332 rooms were scheduled to start construction within 12 months. The remaining 631 projects with 89,472 rooms were in early planning.

For hotel RFPs, the headline project count should not be treated as confirmed, bookable supply. Projects in early planning do not provide the same certainty as hotels with announced opening dates. The pipeline describes future capacity rather than rooms currently available to reserve.

LE’s public summary does not provide property-level opening dates or rates. It also does not identify which hotels may join managed hotel programmes.

Global pipeline reaches 15,976 projects

LE counted 15,976 projects with 2,433,948 rooms worldwide at the end of Q2 2026. This was the highest project total in its records. Of these, 6,174 projects with 1,043,290 rooms were under construction.