Leonardo Hotels is a Finalist for Best Upscale Hotel Brand at the
2026 Travelling for Business Awards, and its rise tells the decade's most instructive European hotel story. While the giants fought over luxury and the disruptors chased lifestyle, the Fattal Hotel Group built quietly and relentlessly in the middle of the map — city-centre hotels in the commercial districts where business travel actually happens, run to a standard that has converted first-time corporate guests into repeat contracts across the UK, Germany, Central Europe and Israel. The model favours ownership and long leases over management-light growth, which keeps standards enforceable.
Britain has become a pillar of the network. The group's landmark conversion of a major UK city-centre estate gave Leonardo instant national coverage — from Scottish capitals to regional conference cities — and the ambition has gone transatlantic: the group's
first US acquisition was announced as a strategic entry into the American market, evidence of a company that plans in decades. Germany, the brand's continental heartland, keeps compounding, with
four new city-centre hotels joining the growing German network and historic properties like Baden-Baden's grand bathhouse hotel entering the fold under the group's upper-tier flags. The tiering itself is deliberate: Leonardo, Leonardo Royal and Leonardo Boutique let the group match product to city and price point without diluting the core promise.
The product hits the pragmatic-premium note this category exists to honour: generously sized rooms, dependable connectivity, conference and meeting floors sized for the working majority rather than the gala minority, and food-and-beverage with regional personality. Rates undercut the glamour brands while the consistency matches them where it counts — the bed, the shower, the Wi-Fi, the breakfast. For travel managers assembling European programmes, that combination, multiplied across more than a hundred addresses, is quietly irresistible. Group-wide, Fattal's engine now counts hundreds of hotels across some twenty countries, giving the Leonardo flags purchasing muscle and technology investment beyond their rate card.
The nomination recognises momentum with substance: a family-driven group that spotted the underserved centre of European business travel and built the network to own it. Winners will be announced at the 2026 Travelling for Business Awards, and Leonardo's rise suggests it plans to be on these lists for years.
