SCOTLAND'S
h o t e l
h o n o u r s
SEASON 2026
The Fully-Researched Awards.™
L A T E S T
How to Take Part
➦Info hub
2026 Finalists Updates & News
➦Live
H I G H L I G H T S F R O M L A S T A W A R D S F I N A L E
Lots of lovely pictures in 4 galleries on
➦Facebook
W E L C O M E
Scotland's Minister for Tourism & Hospitality
➦Richard Lochhead MSP
"It's a privilege to join so many hotel businesses from all parts of Scotland at the prestigious Hotels of the Year awards. You represent the best of Scotland, the best of excellence and experience."
2 0 2 6 S E A S O N
A FRESH APPROACH
National
Hotels of the Year® Scotland will
present Scotland's 2026 Hotel Honours™ for success, achievement and distinction over a fabulous three-event award season. We will continue to support our friends at
➦HIT Scotland
for which 2025 guests raised £3K,
➦ScotHot with whom we partner in 2027 again, and the esteemed
➦Scottish Tourism Alliance.
M A R C H
Discover the first named
➦Finalists
for the top
2026 National Hotel of the Year Scotland
title, plus all the latest with the
Hotel & People Category Collections.
Finalist 2026 badges and certificates are available to PRIME Members who reach this stage.
N E W H O T E L G U I D E
& H O T E L B L U E P L A Q U E S
You'll soon see the carefully designed
Hotel Guide site in Beta form -
and the way it integrates with the Awards and new rating system Scottish
➦Hotel Blue Plaques™ with their
contemporary and highly descriptive format. We'll shortly demo pages from the
consumer site.
T H R E E 2 0 2 6 A W A R D S E V E N T S
Our team's 22nd annual
National Hotels of the Year® Awards Season Events & Categories Diary is now live - as we Shake Things Up and move events beyond the Central Belt. Coming up are
a trio of beautiful occasions - featuring many creative improvements. All the latest is
➦here!
E X P A N D E D E X P E R T I S E
Our growing
Presiding Team
draws on a wide range of sectors and leadership knowledge, in a process that will deepen understanding and judgement - to empower the Awards' accuracy and forthcoming consumer guide.
➦Info Hub
➦Facebook Galleries
➦Hotel Blue Plaques™ 2026
#HOTYS are
fully-researched, with 23 years' commitment to hospitality to draw upon. They're founded on observation over years, informed by mystery visits, BestShot™ visits, interviews, expert advice and guest feedback analysis. We've a deep appreciation of our industry's remarkable, storied people and, by shining a light on the inspirational, help to show how we can all win.
➦PEOPLE Nomination
➦HOTEL Feedback / Nomination
All the best for 2026!
Gary McLean Quin | Chairman
William Gorol | President
David Welch | Senior Vice-President
Lady Claire Macdonald OBE | Patron
➦Meet the Team
22mh Duaisean Nàiseanta Taigh-òsta, Luchd-obrach & Ceannardas na h-Alba
~ ~ ~
22nd National Awards for Scotland's Hotels, Staff and Leadership
P R E M I E R 2 0 2 6 S P O N S O R
Finalists for Scottish Hotel of the Year 2026
➦updated here
2 0 2 6 L O G O S & B A D G E S
▲
Examples of new 2026 FINALIST and WINNER Badges
▲
S H O W O F F Y O U R S U C C E S S
*Logos to download | Use guidelines | Copyright policy
*Trophies: Upgrade your achievement | Replace
*Medals, Certificates: Replace | Enhance
➦Logos Trophies & more
ALL GO FOR '26
BIG NEW EVENT | BIG NEW SITE
DIARY - MARCH 2026
The Scottish Hotel People Awards™
will be inspirational honours featuring across the year's 3 events when we recognise, in style, our leading people in every department - staff and management.
EXCITING GUEST SITE NEARS
Our new
consumer site
will showcase best Scottish hotels. A big project, it'll be a fab resource - packed with ideas, BestList™ guides, full reviews, HOTYS awards (plus respected others), in-depth features, hot links to hotels' offers /
own booking system with incentives - and more.
Prime Members have a PowerPage, plus links on
this site - and can help shape their Hotel Blue Plaque... nice to have now VisitScotland has ended their QA stars.
SOCIALS
F A C E B O O K
➦National Hotels of the Year - Scotland
X
➦@HotelsOfTheYear
I N S T A G R A M
➦@hotelsoftheyear.scot
YEAR~ROUND
SUPPORTING SCOTTISH HOTELS
We do love a
BIG RED CARPET NIGHT...
or three!
The most prestigious of Scottish hotel awards will be held again this year as we celebrate 22 years!
National Hotels of the Year®
presents Scotland's Hotel Honours™ with passion, precision and glamour at three beautiful events on 26th April, 5th July & 18th October. Full details at Events 2026 tab.
THIS SPRING
HOTEL BLUE PLAQUES™ ROLL OUT
HOTYS 2026 FIRST FINALISTS
OTHER CATEGORIES' DATES
The
Hotel Blue Plaques™ scheme was unveiled last year and the first plaques are already up! We've just released first
Finalists for the top National Hotel of the Year® Scotland 2026 title
-
and are now listing All Other Categories at each event's separate page as we go through the phases leading up to the Spring, Summer and October presentations.
PRIME TIME
Upgrade your participation!
ENHANCED MEMBER SCHEME
Prime Membership is now available for season 2026. It includes both awards schemes, the consumer guide and the new Hotel Blue Plaques.
22 YEARS ON
RESEARCH | INTEGRITY | EXPERTISE
NEW APPOINTMENTS
Meet the expanded 2026
➦HOTYS Team
We welcome:
Toby Wand, MD of ScotHot and also 365 Events - who run The National Chef of the Year for the Craft Guild of Chefs, largest chef competition in UK;
Marc Crothall MBE, dynamic, diplomatic CEO of the Scottish Tourism Alliance; and entrepreneur / force of nature
William Gorol, MD of
triSaaS - twice Queen's Award for Enterprise-winner, marathon runner, ex-Chair of Social Bite, our new President... and, two decades ago, our first Scottish Hotel Manager of the Year! A bigger Presiding Team of Experts & more Peer Judges are in place although as you know, we can't list everyone in advance as we need to be a bit undercover at times!
THANK YOU!
We've long supported
➦HIT Scotland - and thank guests for raising £3K in 2025. Additionally,
➦Hospitality Health Scotland has our full support.
TWO HELPFUL FACEBOOK GROUPS
We're please to admin:
➦Scottish Hotels Support Group
