Top 10 cities for luxury travel: Abu Dhabi tops list for five-star hotels

Over 32 per cent of hotels in the UAE capital are top-rated, while India's Chennai has the world's cheapest five-star stays

1. Fairmont Bab Al Bahr in Abu Dhabi, UAE. Victor Besa / The National

2. Grand Hyatt Shenzhen in Shenzhen, China. Courtesy Hyatt Corporation

3. The Peninsula Beijing in Beijing, China. Courtesy The Peninsula Beijing

4. The Peninsula Shanghai in Shanghai, China. Courtesy The Peninsula Hotels

5. Hyatt Regency Hengqin in Zhuhai, Guangdong Province, China. Courtesy Hyatt Hotels Corporation

6. Makkah Clock Royal Tower, A Fairmont Hotel, in Makkah, Saudi Arabia. AFP

7. Mandarin Oriental, Singapore. Courtesy Mandarin Oriental Hotel Group

8. Four Seasons Hotel Guangzhou in Guangzhou, China. Courtesy Four Seasons Hotels and Resorts

9. Shangri-La Hotel, Guilin. Courtesy Shangri-La Hotels and Resorts

10. Shangri-La Hotel, Vancouver in Vancouver, Canada. Courtesy Shangri-La Group

When it comes to luxury travel, the capital of the UAE is the best place to go if you're looking for five-star places to stay.

Abu Dhabi has more five-star hotels as a percentage of its total hotel offering than any other city in the world.

Of 146 hotels across the capital, 47 are ranked as five-star including the opulent Emirates Palace, Mandarin Oriental and celebrity favourite Qasr Al Sarab by Anantara.

This means that Abu Dhabi has a 32 per cent concentration of luxury hotels according to new research by luxuryhotels.com.

Neighbouring Dubai does not make it in to the top 10 rankings. The emirate is home to the Burj Al Arab, known as the world's first seven-star hotel, and has 2,960 properties listed on booking.com.

Of these, only 188 are five-star meaning the luxury segment accounts for 6.35 per cent of Dubai's hotel options. This earns the city the 20th top-spot on the list.

Luxuryhotels.com compiled the data by taking cities from Euromonitor's Top 100 City Destintions report and using Booking.com to find out how many hotels each city has, and which of these are ranked as five-star.

Second in the world's top 10 cities for luxury hotels report is China's Shenzhen where 23.61 per cent of hotels are five-star rated.

Chinese cities also ranked in third, fourth and fifth place via Beijing, Shanghai and Zhuhai, respectively.

Saudi Arabia's Makkah is the sixth highest ranking city when it comes to concentration of luxury hotels. The holy city in western Saudi Arabia has 166 hotels, of which 34, or 20.48 per cent are five-star.

Singapore, China's Guangzhou and Guilin, and Vancouver in Canada round out the top 10 list.

Click through the gallery above to see some of the five-star hotels in each of the top 10 cities

The Top 10 cities with the highest concentration of five-star hotels

1. Abu Dhabi, UAE – 32.19% five-star hotels
2. Shenzhen, China – 23.61% five-star hotels
3. Beijing, China – 21.88% five-star hotels
4. Shanghai, China – 21.11% five-star hotel
5. Zhuhai, China – 20.63% five-star hotels
6. Makkah, Saudi Arabia – 20.48% five-star hotels
7. Singapore – 15.89% five-star hotels
8. Guangzhou, China – 13.05% five-star hotels
9. Guilin, China – 12.50% five-star hotels
10. Vancouver, Canada – 12.41% five-star hotels

London ranked 18th on the list but is also the city with the most number of five-star hotels in total, the UK capital has 347 luxury hotels.

Researchers also compared the price of a five-star stay in cities across the world to find the average cost per room, per night for a luxury sleepover.

And it turns out that depending on where they go, travellers don't need to spend a fortune with five-star rooms in Chennai, India costing tourists just $48 per night.

The cheapest five-star stays in the world

1. Chennai, India – $48
2. Johor Bahru, Malaysia – $58 per night
3. Bangalore, India – $58 per night
4. Agra, India – $59 per night
5. Kolkatta, India – $70 per night
6. New Delhi, India – $70 per night
7. Mumbai, India – $74 per night
8. Jaipur, India – $79 per night
9. Phuket, Thailand – $81 per night
10. Cebu, Philippines – $81 per night

Travellers seeking a luxury European summer escape on a budget will want to consider Greece's island city of Heraklion. It had the most affordable five-star prices in Europe, with an average cost of $111 per night.

Turkey's Istanbul and Antalya ranked in second and third place, with average prices of $117 and $119 a night.