Hilton Again Tops BTN's Buyer Ratings of Traditional Hotel Brands

Hilton Worldwide for the second year in a row finished atop BTN's annual survey of corporate travel buyers' ratings of traditional hotel brands with which they do business, though its lead over second-place Hyatt Hotels Corp. was very small.

BTN asked survey respondents to rate major hotel chains across nine criteria: strategic locations and brand portfolio for business needs, safety and security standards, product quality and service consistency for each brand, innovation and digitization, rate availability and transparency, sales empowerment and responsiveness, a partnership approach to corporate business including rate flexibility, data quality and reporting, and sustainability.

BTN last year began to ask buyers to consider all hotel company brands (except extended-stay, see their results here) when rating their performance. Hilton Worldwide has finished first in BTN's Hotel Survey in both years since this change was implemented. 

Hilton's overall score of 4.76 on a scale on an ascending scale of one to six was only three-hundredths of a point ahead of Hyatt Hotels Corp. Hilton finished first in four categories: safety and security standards, product quality and service consistency for each brand, innovation and digitization, and sustainability.

Hilton in 2025 has focused on expansion, bringing its portfolio of midscale "premium economy" brand Spark to more than 170 hotels after its 2023 launch, opening the 1,000th property in its luxury and lifestyle portfolio as well as its 200th property in Canada and its 160th in Africa. Hilton also reopened the Waldorf Astoria New York, eight years after it closed for renovations, and struck a deal with Conferma to enable access to its property management systems to allow the transmission via API of single-use virtual card numbers.

The Conferma partnership, Hilton SVP and global sales head Frank Passanante told BTN, is reflective of what he sees as the top current concern for corporate customers: the traveler experience. 

"Traveler experience is a very broad topic, but when we are talking to them, they want to eliminate even more friction out of the entire journey from booking through stay," Passanante said. "We continue to dig into ways that we can streamline the booking process through connectivity, giving them better content whether directly or through the partners that they work with. Our customers are embracing new ways for payment, like virtual credit cards. We've done some very unique things in that space, and we're not done."

Hilton scored first among hotel companies in innovation and digitization. Passanante noted the company last year rolled out its on-property mobile messaging platform to all properties in its portfolio. 

"We think this is critical to experience for all of our guests, but specifically our Honors guests and our big corporate accounts," Passanante said. "That connects us to the guest pre-stay, during-stay, post-stay, and customers can talk to us about anything. 'Hey, my flight just had a mechanical issue, I'm going to be three hours late. Can you make sure that my room's available for me when I get there?' The hotel now will reach out and say, ' I see that you're a Diamond member. Here's the Diamond benefits that convey to you at our hotel.'

"It is game-changing both from an Honors recognition perspective but also giving customers a level of connectivity to the hotel that they've felt like perhaps they haven't had before."

Some messages with simple requests are handled by chatbot, Passanante said, but the majority are handled by on-property hotel staff.

Hilton also eked out first place—by a hundredth of a point—in the product quality and service consistency category. 

"All our brands have their own story to tell, but ultimately we have to live up to the customer promise, and that is delivering on the stay experience," Passanante said. "If we deliver on the stay experience, if we deliver on the recognition promise we make through our Honors program, then we're going to win. We're going to win with the traveler. And if we win with the traveler, we are certainly winning with the travel manager."

Hyatt Shines on Corporate Relations

Hyatt Hotels Corp. finished right behind Hilton in second place and finished first in four categories: rate availability and transparency, sales empowerment and responsiveness, a partnership approach to corporate business including rate flexibility and data quality and reporting.

While most of Hyatt's big moves in 2025 were on the leisure side of the ledger, including the $2.6 billion acquisition of all-inclusive resort chain Playa Hotels & Resorts, Hyatt VP of global sales Christina Gambini said the company's lead in the categories reflective of its relationships with corporate clients illustrated the priority it places on the segment.

"We really pride ourselves on being leaders in this space, and we try to ensure that we are always being flexible and collaborating," Gambini said. "We're taking an agile approach with our customers while being efficient and looking at their needs versus our property needs and finding that middle ground. We have always said we will meet our customers where they need to be met."

That approach extends to the details of corporate rate negotiations, Gambini said.

"We offer a range of pricing models for them, [and] we work with them to determine what they're really looking for or what makes sense for their business at that time," Gambini said. "We are willing to be flexible. We offer static and dynamic. We really still take a very careful approach in understanding their needs and ensuring that we are getting them what they're looking for."

As the smallest of the four hotel companies to rank in BTN's Hotel Survey, Gambini said Hyatt is afforded the opportunity to take a more agile approach to negotiations.

"It allows us to be more nimble, to work more closely with our customers, to try different things, to test and learn, to work with them on different approaches without a one-size-fits-all model," Gambini said. "That is a very conscious decision and part of our strategy. We want to be known as the best corporate travel chain that makes it easy for our customers to work with us and that our guests want to stay with us."

IHG Scores with Rate

IHG Hotels & Resorts finished third in the Hotel Survey rankings, tying with Hyatt atop the rate availability and transparency category. IHG has few properties in the lower hotel tiers in the United States, which struggled in 2025 amid the springtime leisure and business demand slowdowns. 

IHG's room revenue in its Americas region generated by business travel in the first half of 2025 increased 3 percent year over year, while average daily rate increased 2 percent and occupancy 1 percent. Systemwide first-half room revenue generated by business transient travel increased 1 percent year over year, while revenue from group travel fell 1 percent.

IHG CEO Elie Maalouf earlier this month at the Bank of America 2025 Gaming & Lodging Conference said economic factors affecting business travel were stabilizing and "industry data from major markets" would "suggest that the same trends you saw in Q2 are continuing into Q3."

IHG this year acquired upscale European "urban micro" lifestyle brand Ruby for about $116 million, following a partnership last year with private German hotel operator Novum Hospitality that doubled its presence in the company. The company continues to grow Garner, the midscale brand it launched last year. As of June 30, the company had 51 Garner properties open.

Marriott Leads Location

Marriott International has the most properties of the four hotel companies in BTN's 2025 Hotel Survey, and it topped the rankings for strategic locations for business needs. Marriott grew further in 2025, acquiring Netherlands-based upscale select-service hotel chain CitizenM for $355 million, opening the first U.S. property under the "affordable midscale" City Express brand it acquired in 2022, and incorporating the inventory of apartment-style accommodations provider Sonder Holdings into its distribution channels.

Marriott posted high scores in categories like safety and security standards, product quality and service consistence and innovation and digitization, but its overall score was hampered by its score for its partnership approach to corporate business. Its score for that category not only was far below those of the other chains in the BTN survey but also solidly lower than the score it posted in last year's survey.

Buyer discontent with Marriott's approach to negotiations in recent years has proven persistent, and sources indicated Marriott in last year's request-for-proposal season was the large hotel chain most insistent on securing dynamic rates in agreements. (Only 7 percent of buyers surveyed for BTN's survey indicated they primarily negotiate dynamic rates in their programs.) 

Marriott for its part earlier this year reshuffled the top of its sales organization as part of what the company called an ongoing reorganization. 

Still, the company's corporate business volume appears relatively steady. Marriott's revenue per available room generated by business travel in the first quarter increased 2 percent year over year, the then dropped 2 percent from 2024 levels in the second quarter. Marriott president and CEO Anthony Capuano this month at the Bank of America 2025 Gaming & Lodging Conference said there has been a "tiny little bit of uptick" in business travel after Labor Day.