The award and the market
Condé Nast Traveler published its 2026 Readers’ Choice Awards on 6 October 2026 and named The Charles Hotel in Harvard Square the number one hotel in its Boston market. The placing sits in the magazine’s US Hotels category for Boston, and the magazine’s own Boston ranking puts the Cambridge property first with a score of 98.91. The release carried by eHotelier renders the honour as #1 in US Hotels – Boston.
The magazine reports more than 798,867 survey responses from readers across the United States. Its awards hub records the same figure as votes cast in its 39th annual Readers’ Choice Awards survey. The 2026 results are published at cntraveler.com/rca, and the magazine says they are celebrated in its November issue.
The rest of the Boston list
The magazine’s Boston ranking runs in this order: The Charles Hotel, Cambridge, first; Omni Boston Hotel at the Seaport second; InterContinental Boston, an IHG Hotel, third; Hyatt Regency Boston Cambridge fourth; Four Seasons Hotel One Dalton Street, Boston, fifth; XV Beacon, Boston, sixth; The Liberty, a Luxury Collection Hotel, Boston, seventh; The Atlas Hotel, Boston, eighth; Boston Harbor Hotel, ninth; and Raffles Boston, tenth. Two of the ten sit in Cambridge and eight in Boston.
The magazine publishes a score against each placing, from 98.91 at the top to 96.34 at tenth.
How the readers arrive at the score
WBZ NewsRadio, reporting the same result on 7 October 2026, sets out the method behind the numbers. It says readers cast 798,867 votes and rated properties on a five-point scale from excellent to poor across rooms, location, service, food and dining, activities, facilities, design, concierge, spa and wellness, and community investment. Those ratings were then averaged into a final percentage score. WBZ adds that properties had to meet a minimum threshold of total responses and scores to qualify, and that enduring design standards, sustainable and carbon-neutral operations, local and regional hiring and landscape or wildlife integration also counted in the scoring.
The general manager on the placing
Adam Sperling, general manager of The Charles Hotel, said the result reflects what makes the property distinctive. “Being awarded the #1 hotel in Boston by the readers of Condé Nast Traveler is an extraordinary honor and a meaningful reflection of what makes The Charles Hotel so special,” he said. “For more than 40 years, we have been deeply rooted in the fabric of Harvard Square and Cambridge, welcoming generations of guests with genuine hospitality while celebrating the history, culture and energy of this remarkable community. We are incredibly grateful to our guests, colleagues and local partners who make The Charles a place people return to time and again.”
The property behind the placing
The release describes 303 guestrooms and suites with New England character and elements inspired by Shaker craftsmanship. It places the hotel next door to the Kennedy School of Government and steps from Harvard Yard and the Charles River, across the river from downtown Boston. It names live jazz at Regattabar, seasonal and locally sourced fare at Henrietta’s Table, and more than 18,000 square feet of meeting and event space.
Condé Nast Traveler’s own page for the property lists it under Cambridge, Massachusetts, records 303 rooms and carries the review credit for Todd Plummer. That page also carries the Readers’ Choice Awards years 2018, 2019 and 2026.
What The Boston Globe reported
The Boston Globe carried the result on 6 October 2026 under the byline of Christopher Muther. The Globe reports that the hotel was built in 1985 and was originally intended as the site of the JFK Library and Museum, and that it debuted at the top of the 2026 list. It notes that The Langham, which the magazine named as Boston’s top hotel in 2025, does not appear in this year’s ratings, and that the Kimpton Marlowe, also on the 2025 list, missed the top ten. The ten properties and their order are identical in the Globe’s list and the magazine’s.
The Globe names the programme the 2026 World’s Best Awards. Condé Nast Traveler names it the Readers’ Choice Awards.
The group affiliation behind the property
Preferred Hotels & Resorts published a bulletin on 6 October 2026 stating that 92 of its member hotels were named winners in the 2026 awards, with more than 107 individual accolades and seven number one rankings across the US and UK editions. The bulletin lists The Charles Hotel Harvard Square under its L.V.X. Collection with the notation #1 in Best Hotels in Boston.