Top 10 New Luxury Hotels Opening Before Christmas 2026

We went through the hotels opening between mid-November and Christmas and kept the ten we would actually book. The rule was simple: each one had to offer something you can only get there.

A pattern shows up quickly. Most of our favourites are small: 20 rooms in Patagonia, 30 in Cortina, a lodge in Lapland that takes six guests. And the best ones are built around a single idea, a hot spring, a radar station, a tea house, more than around a long list of facilities.

1. Six Senses The Palm, Dubai

Opening: 23 November 2026

The first Six Senses in the UAE sits on the West Crescent of Palm Jumeirah and looks back at the Dubai skyline. There are only 61 suites; the rest of the buildings are private residences. The heart of the resort is a 60,000-square-foot spa with a Longevity Clinic, hydrotherapy, biohacking and an Alchemy Bar. The architects are SAOTA, from Cape Town, and some suites have their own pool on the terrace. You can even arrive by sea: transfers run by boat as well as by car. If you go to Dubai to rest rather than to shop, this is the new address to watch.

2. Mandarin Oriental Makati, Manila

Opening: 14 December 2026

This is the return of a Manila legend: the old Mandarin Oriental Manila, open from 1976 to 2014 and designed by National Artist Leandro Locsin. The new tower rises inside Ayala Triangle Gardens, and the ballroom looks out onto nothing but green. The design is a portrait of the Philippines: the colours of the islands seen from above, hand-woven binakol details and a suite chandelier shaped like the sampaguita, the national flower. There are 275 rooms and suites and five restaurants and bars.

3. Fairmont The Red Sea, Saudi Arabia

Opening: November 2026

On Shura Island, the coral island at the heart of The Red Sea destination. The resort sits on Shura Links, the first island golf course in Saudi Arabia, with 18 holes through white dunes and mangroves. In the morning, guests can taste honey from the island's mangroves. For dinner there is Aysu, refined Turkish, and Zaina, pan-Arabic and adults only. A good base for families who want the Red Sea with more to do than the beach.

4. The Mitsui Hakone, Japan

Opening: 15 December 2026

The hotel stands where the Mitsui family once kept a cluster of villas, in Kowakudani, inside Fuji-Hakone-Izu National Park. Every one of the 126 rooms has a private bath fed by a hot spring that rises on the grounds. The detail we like most is the tea house, Shiki-an. It was built partly from the site's own trees by Yasui Moku Koumuten, the Kyoto carpenters who worked on Katsura Imperial Villa. Our pick of the whole list: a hot spring in your own room is the kind of luxury you feel in the first ten minutes.

5. Fouquet's Gstaad, Switzerland

Opening: 4 December 2026

The Paris brand's first Swiss address has 33 rooms, plus a private chalet with nine bedrooms, its own cinema, nightclub and spa. Zuma runs a pop-up inside the hotel, with an open kitchen and a robata grill. Japanese robata in a Swiss ski village is a fun surprise. The spa follows Augustinus Bader treatment protocols and has a snow shower next to the 15-metre indoor pool.

6. METT Milan Torre Velasca, Italy

Opening: 30 November 2026

Torre Velasca is the 1958 BBPR tower that has defined the Milan skyline for almost seventy years, a few steps from the Duomo. Now it gets a hotel. Matteo Thun & Partners designed 72 suites and residences, up to duplex penthouses with private terraces. The Duomo Suite has its own balcony looking straight at the cathedral, and the Milano Suite comes with a cocktail bar built into the room. SUSHISAMBA is already open at the foot of the tower. The hotel opens floor by floor from 30 November, and MIA, the Italian restaurant on the 18th floor, follows in spring 2027 together with the Madison House club and spa.

7. Explora El Calafate, Argentina

Opening: December 2026

Twenty rooms on Chorrillo Malo, a working estancia of about 70,000 hectares that looks across the Patagonian steppe to Lake Argentino. That much land changes the trip. Most people see El Calafate on a day trip to the Perito Moreno glacier; here you get more than 30 guided explorations, from the steppe along the Santa Cruz River to the Peninsula Magallanes reserve. The architect is José Cruz Ovalle, winner of Chile's National Architecture Award, who also co-designed Explora's very first lodge in Torres del Paine.

8. Le Graal Cortina, Italy

Opening: winter 2026

This is the first hotel by Roman architect Achille Salvagni, and he left the alpine chalet look behind: the style comes from Jugendstil and imperial Vienna. The Cortina stories hide in the details: a ceiling border that traces the skyline of the Dolomites, sconces shaped like skis, bronze hinges cast with local folklore and wildlife. Thirty rooms, every one facing the mountains. The restaurant, Le Monsù, takes its name from the Sicilian word for the head chefs of aristocratic houses, and the spa has a cryotherapy chamber.

9. Octola III, Finnish Lapland

Opening: December 2026

You can't book it online. Stays go through a private waiting list. The lodge sits about 500 metres up, on the foundations of a former radar station in protected Sámi wilderness, with views over Finland, Norway and Sweden. It takes six guests with a private chef, so in practice the whole place is yours. Our favourite oddity: an indoor area where you can practise suopunki, the Sámi reindeer lasso, plus an ice-swimming pond next to a wood-fired lakeside sauna. It can also be booked together with its sister retreat, the Aurora Radar Station, a classified site from the mid-1960s.

10. Aava Glass Igloos, Rovaniemi, Finland

Opening: 13 November 2026

Thirteen glass suites on Ollerovaara hill, about 10 km from Rovaniemi. Each one has a heated glass roof above the bed and its own Finnish sauna, and mirrored walls keep the view open while nobody sees in. Reindeer live on the property, and the hotel sends you a live northern lights alert, so on a clear night you won't sleep through them. The first one on this list to open.

Our take

Two things stand out this winter. The mountains are back: Gstaad, Cortina, Hakone and Lapland all get something new before the holidays. And the openings we would book first are the ones with a story you can only live there: a hot spring in your room, a lodge on an old radar station, a tea house built by imperial carpenters.

Planning a winter trip? Have a look at our guides to the best luxury hotels by destination before you choose.

Written by Mirko La Rosa, founder of Luxintravels. He has reviewed luxury hotels from the inside for more than ten years, and he slept in every hotel reviewed on this site. More about Mirko.