The Most Exciting U.S. Hotel Openings Coming in 2026

The next chapter in American hospitality is being written in two directions at once. On one end, cities keep stacking glassy Jenga towers with rooftop bars and a view engineered for the grid. On the other, 2026’s real momentum splits cleanly: forward into places nobody used to consider hotel markets and backward into properties so dormant they’ve started to feel like local folklore.

The surprise is how often the backward move wins. Restoration beats new construction when the bones are right.