TripAdvisor's Pet Friendly Hotel Award Has Quietly Vanished

For two years TripAdvisor told dog owners which hotels in the world were the most pet friendly. The list had a dog food sponsor and a press release each spring. This summer it simply stopped. TripAdvisor's 2026 Best of the Best hotel awards, announced on 9 June, carry three lists, the top hotels in the world, the top hotels in the United States and a One-of-a-Kind selection, and no pet friendly one. The announcement does not mention the category, the sponsor or two years of winners. Nothing explains the gap.

It went quiet a few months after Roch Dog published research showing what the award had been measuring all along, and it was not the dog.

A Badge With a Dog Food Sponsor

The award was born in May 2024. Mars, the owner of the CESAR dog food brand, announced in its own press release that it had partnered with TripAdvisor to create a Best of the Best category for pet friendly hotels under CESAR Canine Cuisine, "kicking off in the U.S. market with plans for future global expansion". Hotel Fioreze Quero Quero in Gramado, Brazil, was named the most pet friendly hotel in the world, and the Hyatt Centric Las Olas in Fort Lauderdale the best in the United States.

A second edition followed on 29 April 2025. TripAdvisor's release that day said the company was "proud to continue the Pet-Friendly hotel subcategory in partnership with CESAR® Canine Cuisine", and named Hotel Moments Budapest the best pet friendly hotel in the world. The list lived at its own address on tripadvisor.com, filed beside the luxury, family and all inclusive lists, and the Wayback Machine's capture of that page from 29 November 2025 still shows it: a ranked list headed Best of the Best Pet-Friendly Hotels in the World, with Hotel Moments at number one.

What the Research Found

Roch Dog read the first list within a fortnight of its appearing. In June 2024 the Society telephoned the American winners and scored them against the standard then in force; the American number one, the Hyatt Centric Las Olas, came out with 10 points of a possible 52. A second piece that September did the same for USA Today's readers' vote. Then, on 24 March 2026, Roch Dog published How "Pet Friendly" Hotel Awards Mislead Millions of Pet Owners, a paper setting every winner of both awards against the Roch Dog Friendly Standard. It is now in its fifth edition, and its findings have not softened.

The hotel TripAdvisor had named the best pet friendly hotel in the world for 2025 publishes no pet policy on its own website. The booking platforms that list it cannot agree whether its weight limit is 5 kilograms or 10 pounds, or whether its fee is 25 or 40 euros a night. A 5 kilogram limit excludes a Beagle. Of that year's twenty winners, twelve had no public pet policy at all, nothing a dog owner could read before booking. The first American winner, the Hyatt Centric Las Olas, grades D under the standard: no dog bed, no bowls, $75 a stay, and the dog kept out of the bar, the restaurant and the public areas.

The paper also explains how that happens. Whether a hotel appeared in the pet friendly category depended on a flag the hotel set on its own listing, and the winners were the flagged hotels with the most warm reviews, most of them written by guests who never brought a dog. TripAdvisor did not read the pet policy, did not ask about weight limits or fees, and did not visit. In the paper's words, "the award certifies a welcome that nobody, including the hotel, has written down."

The Order of Events

The dates tell the story on their own. The award launched in May 2024 with a dog food sponsor. A month later Roch Dog telephoned its American winners and found the number one scoring 10 points out of 52. In April 2025 TripAdvisor said it was proud to continue the category. On 24 March 2026 Roch Dog published its paper, and on 9 June TripAdvisor announced its awards with no pet friendly list and no word about the sponsor. Neither TripAdvisor nor Mars has said why.

By October the address that once carried the list was serving TripAdvisor's general list of the world's best hotels, and today a Google search for the pet friendly list turns up nothing at all. It has vanished from the internet.

Gone Without a Word

A badge that told millions of dog owners where to take their dogs has gone without a word to any of them. For two years it crowned hotels nobody had checked, twelve of one year's twenty winners with no dog policy a guest could read, and within months of that record being set out in public, the list was gone. TripAdvisor and Mars have never said why. People are still searching for it.