Average hotel prices in Spain rise to €163: Marbella leads the ranking at €334

The average hotel price in Spain was €163.40 per night between January and June 2026, 4.9% more than in the same period a year earlier, with occupancy at 74.1%. And one name tops the ranking by a wide margin: Marbella, where a night cost an average of €334.10, up 7% on 2025. The figures come from the Hotel Barometer produced by STR and Cushman & Wakefield.

Marbella being Spain's most expensive hotel destination, ahead of Barcelona and Madrid, is not a tourism statistic: it is a property statistic. The rate a hotel manages to charge per night sets the reference ceiling for all the accommodation around it, holiday rental homes included.

How much does a hotel night cost in Spain in 2026?

The sector strings together another half-year of increases, and what matters is that it is rising on both fronts at once: charging more per night and filling slightly more rooms. When that happens, revenue per available room, the indicator that really measures the business, grows faster than the rate itself.

Which is Spain's most expensive hotel destination?

Marbella, and not by a small margin. Its €334.10 average daily rate is more than 70% above Barcelona and almost double Madrid. In revenue per available room the gap is even clearer: €218.70 against €154.30 in Barcelona and €142.10 in Madrid.

The biggest rate increases did not happen on the Costa del Sol, but in Valencia at 9.5%, the Balearics at 9% and Alicante at 7.9%. The only city to cut prices was Granada, with a slight 1.9% decline. Marbella, at 7%, is rising from a far higher base, which is precisely the hard part.

Which destinations fill their hotels the most?

Here the order changes. Valencia leads on occupancy with 91.2%, followed by Alicante with 83.3% and Malaga with 80.5%, all three above Madrid and Barcelona. According to the study's authors, these figures reflect consistent demand throughout the year and increasing deseasonalisation of the destinations.

That word, deseasonalisation, is the most important one in the report for a property owner. It means the high season is stretching and the accommodation business is no longer concentrated in eight summer weeks. The few destinations that lost occupancy were Córdoba, down 2.9%, the Canary Islands at 1.8%, Benidorm at 0.8% and Biscay at 0.3%.

What does a hotel's price tell a property owner?

Far more than it seems. Hotels and tourist apartments compete for the same guest, so the hotel rate works as a reference for an area's price ceiling. If a hotel in Marbella sustains €334 a night with full occupancy, a well-equipped apartment has pricing headroom that in Benidorm, averaging €89.90, simply does not exist.

The other lesson is in the metric itself. Revenue per available room combines price and occupancy in a single number, and it is exactly what you should be calculating for your own property: not what you charge on the nights you let it, but what you earn per available night across the whole year. That is the difference between an attractive rate and an actual return.

What this means for investing on the Costa del Sol

• Marbella has the strongest accommodation pricing power in the country, and that feeds through to the value of homes with tourist potential.
• Málaga, at 80.5% occupancy, shows steady demand outside the summer peaks: deseasonalisation supports annual income.
• Always work out income per available night, not the peak-season rate. It is the number professionals use and the one that prevents surprises.
• Rates rise fastest where they started lowest: Valencia, the Balearics and Alicante are growing more. On the Costa del Sol the upside lies more in quality than in rate increases.
• Check the municipality's tourist regulations before buying: no rate is any use if holiday letting is not permitted in that building.

It is worth closing the loop with the purchase price, which is the other half of the equation. According to our tracking of active supply in August 2026, the square metre on the Costa del Sol ranges from €5,952 in Marbella to €3,231 in Manilva, with Estepona at €4,674 and Mijas at €4,182. Marbella commands the highest rates in Spain, but it is also where the investor pays most to get in: the return comes from combining both figures, never from one alone.

At EVS PROPERTY GROUP we cross-check both sides before recommending a purchase: what the property costs and what it can genuinely earn in its municipality. If you are considering a buy-to-let on the Costa del Sol, get in touch and we will look at the actual numbers.

Frequently asked questions