Spain hotel stays rose 1.7% in September as prices climbed 6.7%

Spain’s hotels recorded more than 40.1 million overnight stays in September 2026, a 1.7% increase from the same month a year earlier, according to provisional figures published by the National Statistics Institute (INE) on 23 October. The growth came from non-resident travellers: their nights rose 3.2%, while nights booked by Spain residents fell 1.9%. The split shows that the monthly increase was not shared equally across visitor groups.

Across January to September, hotel overnight stays were 1.5% higher than in the same period of 2025. Nights by non-residents increased 2.2%, while those by residents edged up 0.1%. September’s divergent changes therefore sit within a nine-month period in which both groups recorded positive or near-flat cumulative comparisons, though the underlying monthly pattern was uneven.

The destinations differed by traveller residence. Andalusia, Catalonia and the Valencian Community received the largest shares of nights by residents, at 22.4%, 13.8% and 12.8%. For non-residents, the Balearic Islands accounted for 32.5%, followed by Catalonia at 18.4% and the Canary Islands at 17.7%. Mallorca was the leading tourist area, with more than 7.3 million nights; Madrid, Barcelona and Calvià led among individual destinations.

Hotel capacity use was 67.0% of available beds in September, up 0.3% from a year earlier. Weekend occupancy reached 72.6%, 0.4% higher year over year. The Balearic Islands recorded the highest regional bed occupancy at 82.6%; the Palma–Calvià area reached 85.3% overall and 88.8% on weekends. Llucmajor had the highest occupancy among individual tourist points, at 90.1%, rising to 94.2% on weekends.

Prices and room revenue rose faster than overnight stays. The Hotel Price Index increased 6.7% year over year; across regions, the rise ranged from 2.4% in Aragon to 13.7% in Ceuta. The average daily rate per occupied room was €141.6, up 7.4%. Revenue per available room (RevPAR), which reflects both price and occupancy, reached €110.5, a 7.7% rise. Those are sector averages and do not describe the price or earnings of every hotel.

The release combines the hotel occupancy survey, the hotel price index and profitability indicators, with September results marked provisional. It reports nights, occupancy, prices and room revenue as different measures: more stays do not by themselves establish higher hotel capacity, and RevPAR is affected by both room rates and occupancy. The monthly data should therefore be read as a set of related but distinct signals rather than a single measure of tourism growth.

Because the September observations are provisional, later updates may change them. INE provides detailed monthly tables for regions, provinces, tourist areas and points, but the national headline alone cannot show the distribution of every locality or hotel category. The release also does not identify the causes of changes in prices or demand.