The hotel plant of the Madrid capital currently exceeds the Catalan one by 22%
The fight between Madrid and Barcelona to dispute the scepter of hotel investment in Spain seems to continue to fall on the side of the Madrid capital. If in 2022, hotel investment in Madrid reached a ceiling of 803 million euros, which represented 24% and more than four times what was captured by Barcelona in the same period (225 million euros), the portfolio of projects for This year and next year it points in the same direction.
The Catalan capital accumulates 13 hotel projects, while the Madrid capital adds 20 more up to 33 assets, according to the report: Madrid vs Barcelona, prepared by the consultancy. “The supply of establishments in Madrid has experienced significant growth since 2017, largely driven by the entry of international chains that did not have a presence in the city. This interest in Madrid will continue in 2023 and 2024, with a total of 33 establishments projected by the end of 2022," the report underlines. On the other hand, the demand for Barcelona has continued to grow, but at a lower rate. "Barcelona had, at the end of 2022, 13 hotel projects that will add more than 1,800 rooms to the market in the coming years, most of them championed by top-level international brands such as Marriot, Hilton, Limehome or easyHotel," he says.
The surprise from Madrid to Barcelona is a trend that has been observed since even before the pandemic. In the historical series from 2018 to 2022 there are three years (2018, 2019 and 2022) in which the number of operations and hotel assets in Madrid exceeded those in Barcelona. The opposite only happened in 2020 and 2021, the worst years of the pandemic.
The positions are reversed if the three main indicators of hotel activity are analyzed (rate, average income per available room and occupancy). Barcelona attracts less investment, but continues to get more performance from its assets. The average rate in five-star hotels in Barcelona grew by 38% in 2022 to 309 euros, while in the case of Madrid it rose 31.1% to 244 euros. A similar gap occurs in the case of the average price of hotels with a four-star category (143.8 euros per room for Barcelona and 115.9 euros for Madrid).
But the most important difference occurs in revenue per available room, where the average for five stars in Barcelona is 201 euros and in Madrid it is 137 euros. The experts consulted attribute this gap to the hotel moratorium in Barcelona, which prevents the entry of new competitors and allows companies to move prices more freely than in the case of Madrid, where competition prevents sharp price increases.
