The Forbes Travel Guide Five-Star is the most rigorously defended designation in luxury hospitality. Anonymous inspectors. Multi-night stays. More than 900 objective standards. When a property earns it, the signal is meaningful — and when fifteen properties earn it in a single year, the class of the vintage is worth paying attention to.
TL;DR: Forbes Travel Guide's 2026 Star Awards — the 68th annual edition — named 15 new Five-Star hotels, resorts, and one historic first: the world's first Five-Star cruise. From a Ritz-Carlton superyacht to the first Five-Star in Saudi Arabia, Montana, and Turks and Caicos, the class of 2026 is the most geographically diverse in the award's history. Here's what each property actually offers, and why it matters.
The Forbes Travel Guide Five-Star is the most rigorous rating in luxury hospitality. Anonymous inspectors conduct multi-night stays and evaluate properties against more than 900 objective standards — covering human service touchpoints, timing, anticipation, and consistency, not just facility quality. A new Five-Star means a property held up under that scrutiny. Fifteen new ones in a single year, spanning five continents, says something about where the industry is heading.
The 2026 list dropped on February 11 — and it immediately stood out. When the award list dropped, we pulled it apart immediately — and posted the Five-Star newcomers the same day. Here's the full breakdown.
Which hotels received a new Forbes Five-Star rating in 2026?
Fifteen properties joined the Five-Star tier for 2026, across the Americas, Europe, the Middle East, Asia, and at sea. They are: Ilma (The Ritz-Carlton Yacht Collection), Wymara Villas at Sunset Cove, The Ritz-Carlton Nikko, One&Only Portonovi, Emirates Palace Mandarin Oriental Abu Dhabi, St. Regis Atlanta, The Ritz-Carlton Orlando Grande Lakes, Nujuma A Ritz-Carlton Reserve, Mandarin Oriental Qianmen Beijing, Mandarin Oriental Savoy Zurich, Mandarin Oriental Barcelona, Mii amo Sedona, Capella at Galaxy Macau, Paiza Grand Macau, and Palazzo Versace Macau.
Each earned its rating independently. What they share is operational consistency under anonymous inspection — the standard that separates a Forbes Five-Star from any self-reported or government-issued designation.
The Americas: Four new Five-Stars across the US and Caribbean
St. Regis Atlanta made history as Atlanta's first double Five-Star property — the hotel and its restaurant earned the rating simultaneously. The St. Regis sits in Buckhead, the city's luxury corridor, and has been a consistent performer in service. The double designation is rare and reflects a food and beverage program that operates at the same standard as the rooms.
The Ritz-Carlton Orlando, Grande Lakes becomes Orlando's first Forbes Five-Star. The property has long drawn families, golfers, and spa-goers, but the 2026 rating formalizes what repeat guests already knew: this is the most operationally serious hotel in a market not historically known for that. The spa and the Greg Norman-designed golf course are the two distinctive assets.
Mii amo in Sedona, Arizona is Sedona's first Five-Star and one of the more distinctive properties on the entire list. The resort is built around the red rock landscape — an energy center, guided vortex hikes, meditation programming, mountain biking, and stargazing. It's wellness travel at its most site-specific: the destination and the property are inseparable.
Wymara Villas, Sunset Cove in Providenciales, Turks and Caicos becomes the islands' first Forbes Five-Star hotel. The villas are contemporary with private infinity pools — several with water slides directly into the sea — and the property's defining feature is a 130-foot ocean pool, the first in the Caribbean. Grace Bay's caliber of water and the islands' privacy have always been there; this is the product finally matching the setting.
Europe and the Mediterranean: Spain, Montenegro, Switzerland
Mandarin Oriental Barcelona sits on the Passeig de Gràcia — facing Modernista architecture — in a building that integrates an early 20th-century structure with contemporary interiors. Barcelona has been waiting for a Forbes Five-Star anchor, and the Mandarin delivers it. The rooftop pool, the guests-only restaurant built around Catalan produce, and the Five-Star spa are the three assets that justify a stay specifically at this property over any other in the city.
One&Only Portonovi in Montenegro brings a Jean-Michel Gathy-designed property to the Adriatic. The headline facility is a 43,000-square-foot Chenot Espace wellness center — one of the most serious longevity and detox programs in Europe, in a country that most luxury travelers haven't reached yet. Montenegro's coast is genuinely beautiful, and Portonovi is the first property to hold the bar at this level.
Mandarin Oriental Savoy, Zurich is one of Europe's great historic hotels, with guests including Charles Dickens and Richard Wagner. The 2026 Five-Star reflects a property that has managed the restoration challenge well — keeping the building's character intact while operating at the service standard modern inspection requires.
Middle East and Asia: Saudi Arabia, Abu Dhabi, Japan, China, Macau
Nujuma, a Ritz-Carlton Reserve in Saudi Arabia's Red Sea becomes the inaugural Five-Star from the kingdom's Red Sea giga-project and was previously featured on Forbes Travel Guide's 2025 Edge List. Overwater and beach villas on Ummahat Island, house reef snorkeling among some of the healthiest coral in the world, and purposefully small scale — this is the most compelling hospitality argument Saudi Arabia has made to date.
Emirates Palace Mandarin Oriental, Abu Dhabi anchors the UAE capital's luxury offer next to the presidential palace on a private beach. The marble dome, gold-plated ceiling, and the sheer scale of the public spaces have been drawing guests for years. The Mandarin Oriental management layer brings the service consistency that converts an impressive building into a Five-Star experience.
The Ritz-Carlton, Nikko becomes Nikko's first Five-Star — 94 modern-minimalist rooms inside Nikko National Park along the shores of Lake Chuzenji, with the brand's first onsen. Japan has been the most-searched travel destination of 2026, and a new Five-Star in a national park setting — away from Tokyo and Kyoto — gives the serious Japan traveler a different kind of anchor.
Mandarin Oriental Qianmen, Beijing is built across 42 traditional hutong courtyard houses in one of the city's most historically significant neighborhoods. The property's architecture is the story — a contemporary hotel operation threaded through structures that predate modern Beijing entirely.
Macau earned three new Five-Stars in a single year. Capella at Galaxy Macau is a hotel-within-a-hotel with 95 suites and penthouses, the latter featuring glass-fronted infinity pools overlooking the city. Paiza Grand, atop the Londoner Grand, brings a three-story Hampton Court residence club and a butler whose specific brief includes a gin cart for customized G&Ts. Palazzo Versace Macau inside Grand Lisboa Palace delivers bold Italian design layered with Chinese motifs and a Five-Star spa with an East-meets-West treatment program. Three entirely different aesthetic propositions in one city.
What makes the world's first Five-Star cruise significant?
The Ritz-Carlton Yacht Collection's Ilma is the first cruise ship ever to receive a Forbes Travel Guide Five-Star rating — a designation that has never before applied to a vessel. It means the anonymous inspection process, against the same 900+ service standards applied to land-based hotels, returned a result that qualifies. That matters because it extends the Five-Star benchmark into a category it didn't previously reach.
Ilma, The Ritz-Carlton Yacht Collection's superyacht, becomes the world's first Forbes Travel Guide Five-Star cruise — a category designation that has never existed before. The 790-foot vessel carries 224 suites, all with private terraces. Dining comes from Michael Mina and Fabio Trabocchi. The Ritz-Carlton Spa runs across 11 treatment rooms. Two infinity pools sit at the stern. The vessel operates globally, and the itineraries rotate seasonally.
The significance here goes beyond the property: FTG extending the Five-Star standard to a cruise vessel means the inspection framework now travels. The same anonymous, 900-point evaluation that holds a land-based hotel accountable now applies at sea. That's a meaningful expansion of what the rating actually covers.
What You Actually Want to Know
When did Forbes Travel Guide announce the 2026 Star Awards?
The 2026 Star Awards — the 68th annual edition — were announced on February 11, 2026. The full list covers Five-Star, Four-Star, and Recommended designations across hotels, spas, restaurants, and for the first time, an ocean cruise.
How many new Five-Star hotels were added in 2026?
Fifteen new properties received Five-Star status in 2026, plus one Five-Star cruise (Ilma). This is the most geographically diverse single-year class in recent memory, spanning the US, Caribbean, Europe, Middle East, Japan, China, and Macau.
What's the difference between a Forbes Five-Star and other five-star ratings?
Forbes Five-Star is awarded based on anonymous, inspector-conducted multi-night evaluations against 900+ objective criteria — with particular weight on human service delivery. It cannot be purchased, applied for, or self-reported. Most other "five-star" classifications are government facility ratings or consumer aggregations and do not involve anonymous inspection.
Which of the 2026 new Five-Stars are the most compelling for US travelers?
For a domestic trip: St. Regis Atlanta, The Ritz-Carlton Orlando Grande Lakes, and Mii amo in Sedona offer three completely different experiences within the US. For international travel, Wymara Villas in Turks and Caicos is a short flight from Miami and New York. Nujuma in Saudi Arabia and The Ritz-Carlton Nikko represent the two strongest new arguments for longer-haul trips.
For properties that opened in 2026 and are already earning attention, Noon's guide to the most anticipated hotel openings of 2026 covers Capella Kyoto, Rosewood Doha, Bulgari Maldives, and others — several of which are already on track for future Star Award consideration.
Can Noon help book any of these properties?
Yes. Noon's advisors work with properties across the Forbes Five-Star list. Tell us where you want to go.
Planning a trip around any of these properties? Noon's advisors know these hotels — and how to get you in the right room.
By Noon Travel Editors | February 11, 2026
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