China now has 374,694 hotels, according to the China Hotel Association, up from the roughly 320,000 in our previous edition. It is the biggest move in this update of our global hotel supply chart. But the more interesting story sits underneath it: how many of the world’s hotels belong to a chain, and how many stand on their own.
Across seven regions we count about 856,000 hotels and some 42 million rooms. Roughly 227,000 of those hotels are chain-affiliated and about 629,000, or around 73%, are independent. These world totals are indicative: they mix verified counts, derived figures and estimates, and we label each one below.
Why this edition is hard to compare with the last one
We published the first version of this chart in December 2025. A like-for-like comparison with it is hard, and we would rather say so plainly.
Our estimates are getting more precise. For this edition we found more official counts, added countries that were missing and corrected a few splits that did not hold up. So some numbers moved because we now see more of the market, not because the market itself moved.
Read the region-by-region changes as a guide to where our data improved. Read the chain-versus-independent figures as estimates, not as a census.
Is the global hotel count really stable?
Only partly. The regional rows of the last edition added up to about 752,000 hotels (the US sat inside the Americas figure, so it is not counted twice). The new rows add up to about 856,000. That is roughly 104,000 hotels, or 14%, more, and about 42.1 million rooms against 37.3 million.
Almost all of the gap comes from two regions: China (about +55,000 hotels) and the Americas (about +44,000, because the Rest of Americas is now built country by country and includes South America). Europe adds about 5,500. The three other regions did not change.
Our honest reading: the world did not gain 100,000 hotels in a year. A fairer summary is “around 850,000 hotels, counted more completely than before”. Part of China’s rise is real growth. We cannot say how much of the rise in the Americas is.
Region by region: market move or data effect?
China: a real move plus a newer official count
The China Hotel Association counted 374,694 hotels and 18.74 million rooms at 31 December 2025, against about 320,000 and 16.5 million in our last edition. Some of that is real expansion. Some of it is simply a newer official count: our earlier figure rested on an older release. We cannot split the two exactly.
The count covers hotels only. Including guesthouses and other non-hotel lodging, China has 593,086 lodging facilities.
USA + Canada and the Rest of Americas: mostly a data effect
We now show USA + Canada as one region: about 65,000 US hotels and 5.79 million US rooms, plus 7,556 Canadian hotels and 466,846 rooms (Horwath HTL), 72,556 hotels and 6.26 million rooms in total. The US moves only slightly from last time (about 60,000 hotels and 5.7 million rooms).
The Rest of Americas, which covers Mexico, the Caribbean, Central America and South America, is new. We built it by adding up national sources: about 81,000 hotels and 2.61 million rooms, an estimate. Definitions differ a lot. Several countries count every registered lodging, small posadas and hostels included. Argentina’s figures date from 2016, and we found no usable source for Chile, Uruguay, Paraguay, Venezuela, Guyana, Suriname or French Guiana. Room counts are the more reliable measure here.
Taken together, the Americas go from about 110,000 hotels and 7.2 million rooms to about 153,800 hotels and 8.87 million rooms. We would not call that growth. It is mostly wider coverage.
Europe: a method correction, and two countries added
Europe is now 205,476 hotels and about 7.38 million rooms. The hotel count is a sum of three pieces: Eurostat’s count for the EU-27 and neighbouring countries (170,973), the UK from the Office for National Statistics (13,415, March 2026) and Türkiye from Eurostat (21,088, 2025). The rooms are CoStar’s 6.5 million for Europe (August 2026, without Türkiye) plus 877,527 bedrooms in Türkiye.
Against last time’s round 200,000 hotels and 6.5 million rooms, the change is mostly Türkiye and the UK entering the picture, not the market moving.
The bigger change is in the chain count. Our last edition showed 75,000 chain hotels in Europe. That did not stand up against other data: in Germany, Austria and Switzerland, Horwath HTL counts chains at 9.8% of hotels (data at 30 June 2026). We now estimate about 20,000 chain hotels and about 185,000 independents in Europe. That is a correction of method. It is not a market move.
Asia-Pacific (ex-China), the Middle East and Africa: unchanged
We found no new regional source for these three, so the figures are carried over from December 2025 and stay labelled as estimates. Please do not read “unchanged” as “flat markets”. The chain shares implied for these regions (47% of hotels in Asia-Pacific ex-China, 67% in the Middle East, 40% in Africa) look high next to China’s 28% and Europe’s 10%, and we treat them with caution.
The real story: chains versus independents
Worldwide, about 27% of hotels are chain-affiliated and about 73% are independent (indicative, estimates). Last edition’s rows implied about 38% chain. The drop is not the market. It comes from the corrections above: Europe’s chain count falls by about 55,000 and the Americas’ by about 22,000, while China’s rises by about 15,000. We do not think chains lost 62,000 hotels in a year.
Counting rooms instead of hotels tells a different story, because chain hotels are bigger. In China chains hold 28.4% of hotels but 41.8% of rooms. In the US about 57% of hotels and 73% of rooms are chain-affiliated (CoStar, STR, August 2024). Our last edition quoted “about seventy percent” for the US; 73% is the more precise figure.
Europe is where the split is moving. According to CoStar data reported by the Financial Times, chains held more than 41% of Europe’s 6.5 million hotel rooms in August 2026, up from 36% in 2020. In hotel numbers they are still about one in ten. Two cautions: the figure cannot say how much of the rise comes from new chain hotels and how much from independents that changed their sign (conversions); and our table shows a lower, estimated 36% for Europe. That is because we spread the same chain rooms (about 2.67 million) over 7.38 million rooms once Türkiye is included, where we have not counted any chain rooms. The match with the 2020 figure is a coincidence of arithmetic. Treat our 36% as a floor.
| Region | Chain share of rooms | Chain share of hotels | Whose definition of “chain” |
|---|---|---|---|
| China | 41.8% | 28.4% | China Hotel Association: a brand with 3 or more outlets |
| USA + Canada | ~72% | ~54% | Each source’s own: CoStar and STR (US), Horwath HTL (Canada) |
| Rest of Americas | ~25% est. | ~5% est. | Mixed. Brazil’s JLL data treats national chains under 600 rooms as independent |
| Europe | ~36% est. (CoStar: more than 41% of 6.5M rooms) | ~10% est. | CoStar for rooms; Horwath HTL counts branded hotels |
| Asia-Pacific ex-China, Middle East, Africa | not estimated | not reliable (carried-over estimates) | n/a |
What counts as a chain?
The definition changes with the source, and so do the numbers. China’s association counts a brand with three or more outlets as a chain. JLL’s Brazil data treats national chains under 600 rooms as independent. Horwath HTL counts branded hotels. Is a family group of ten hotels a chain, or just a group? In China’s statistics it is a chain. Under other rules it may not be. That is one more reason the regions are not strictly comparable.
The biggest names are easier to count. According to their latest company reports, Marriott International runs about 1.83 million rooms, Hilton 1.41 million, Jin Jiang 1.39 million and H World 1.34 million. The ten largest groups together run about 10.2 million rooms. For the full list of chains and where their brands fit, see our Hotel Brands of the World infographic.
The 2027 edition by region, against the last edition
| Region | Hotels | Rooms | Chain hotels | Independent hotels | Status of 2027 figures |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| China | 374,694 (was ~320,000) | 18.74M (was ~16.5M) | ~106,300 (was ~91,000) | ~268,400 (was ~229,000) | Verified totals (CHA, 31 Dec 2025); chain/independent split derived |
| USA + Canada | 72,556 (US only was ~60,000) | 6.26M (US only was ~5.7M) | ~39,100 (US only was ~38,000) | ~33,500 (US only was ~22,000) | Medium confidence; split derived from CoStar, STR and Horwath HTL shares |
| Rest of Americas (Mexico, Caribbean, Central and South America) | ~81,000 (new row) | 2.61M (new row) | ~4,000 est. | ~77,000 est. | Estimate: sum of national sources with mixed definitions |
| Americas combined (sum of the two rows above) | ~153,800 (was ~110,000) | ~8.87M (was ~7.2M) | ~43,100 (was ~65,000) | ~110,500 (was ~45,000) | Mostly a data effect |
| Europe (now incl. UK and Türkiye) | 205,476 (was ~200,000) | ~7.38M (was ~6.5M) | ~20,000 est. (was ~75,000) | ~185,000 est. (was ~125,000) | Hotel count derived (Eurostat + ONS); split is an estimate |
| Asia-Pacific ex-China | ~85,000 est. (unchanged) | ~4.8M est. (unchanged) | ~40,000 est. (unchanged) | ~45,000 est. (unchanged) | Estimate carried over from Dec 2025 |
| Middle East | ~12,000 est. (unchanged) | ~1.0M est. (unchanged) | ~8,000 est. (unchanged) | ~4,000 est. (unchanged) | Estimate carried over from Dec 2025 |
| Africa | ~25,000 est. (unchanged) | ~1.3M est. (unchanged) | ~10,000 est. (unchanged) | ~15,000 est. (unchanged) | Estimate carried over from Dec 2025 |
| World (indicative sum) | ~856,000 (was ~752,000) | ~42.1M (was ~37.3M) | ~227,000 est. (was ~289,000) | ~629,000 est. (was ~463,000) | Indicative only: mixes verified, derived and estimated figures |
How we built the numbers
- Hotels and rooms come from published official or industry sources, listed below. Dates differ by region: most are 2025 or 2026, Argentina is 2016.
- Chain and independent hotel counts are partly our own derivation from published chain shares and average chain-hotel size. Independent = total minus chain. We round verified and derived figures to the nearest 100 and estimates to the nearest 1,000.
- Estimates are labelled “est.” in the chart, the table and the text.
- The world total is the sum of the seven regional rows. It is indicative, and we do not give a world chain share of rooms, because three regions have no chain-share estimate.
Sources
- China Hotel Association, 2026 China Hotel Industry Report
- CoStar, how conversions fit into the US hotel development picture
- AHLA, US lodging industry facts (US room count)
- Horwath HTL, Canada Hotels & Chains Report 2026
- Horwath HTL, Mexico hotel industry report 2025
- Caribbean Journal, Caribbean hotel census (STR), June 2026
- SITCA, Central America tourism registers
- JLL via Panrotas, Brazil hotel supply and chains (2024)
- ProColombia, international chains in Colombia
- MINCETUR Peru, lodging supply and demand 2025
- Ecuador, Ministry of Production, tourism bulletin (Nov 2025)
- UDAPE Bolivia, tourism diagnostic 2023
- Horwath HTL, LATAM & Caribbean Hotels & Chains Report 2017
- Eurostat, tour_cap_nat (NACE I551), dataset updated 12 Oct 2026
- ONS, UK business: activity, size and location 2026 (Table 17)
- Hospitality.today, 2 Nov 2026 (CoStar data via the Financial Times)
- Horwath HTL, DACH Hotel Chains Report 2026
- Horwath HTL, Asia Pacific Chains & Hotels Report 2018
- Hotel groups: Hilton Q3 2026 results
- Hotel groups: H World Q2 2026 results
- Hotel groups: Jin Jiang (GDIRI)
- Hotel groups: IHG Q3 2026 trading update
- Hotel groups: Choice Hotels Q3 2026 results
- Hotel groups: Wyndham Q3 2026 results
- Hotel groups: Accor Q3 2026
- Hotel groups: Best Western (BWH) international figures, Mar 2026
STR’s 73% US chain share of rooms (August 2024) was reported by Lodging Magazine. Marriott International and Hyatt figures come from their Q3 2026 filings with the US SEC (10-Q).
Chart and article: 10 Minutes.
