The tourism boom in Spain already attracts 18% of European hotel investment

Spain is in fashion, for better or worse. Tourism is experiencing its peak and this has an impact on investment. Everyone wants to have their place in Spain. For this reason, in the first six months of the year our country has already Attracts 18% of total hotel investment which is taking place across Europe, compared to 6% throughout 2019, the year before the pandemic. In total, Spain has received 1.535 billion euros for the hotel sector.

Only Spain is ahead of Great Britainwhich has recovered after several years of investment ‘drought’ and has gone on to monopolize the 37% of transactionscompared to 17% the previous year, with 3.2 billion euros. After Spain, in second position, are France (11%), Italy (9%) and Germany (5%).

In this way, hotel real estate spending in Spain during the first half of the year has had a “excellent behaviorsurpassing the good figures of 2023″, despite the international context in which hotel investment has fallen by 17% in the last 12 months, according to the fourth edition of the report ‘The Hotel Property Telescope‘, conducted by the Ernst & Young (EY) Strategy and Transactions team.

In any case, although hotel investment in Spain has had a very good start to the year, better than the previous one, it is still We’ll have to see how the next few months develop.to see if it exceeds the 20% investment that was recorded throughout 2023. If it is exceeded, the figure will also be historic on an annual level.

Downward trend in the rest of the world

The cases of Spain, Great Britain and Europe in general go against what is happening in the rest of the world. According to data handled by EY, worldwide Hotel investment in the first quarter fell by 17% to €9.8 billion. In the Americas alone, investment fell by 42% (to 3.3 billion euros) and in Asia-Pacific by 8% (1.9 billion euros).

For its part, the region EMEA (Europe, the Middle East and Africa) have increased their investment volume by 19%, reaching 4.5 billion euros and representing 46% of the world total. Southern Europe accounts for 32% of the total in Europe.

In addition, in the Top 25 hotel transactions Among the most important events in Europe, there are four that took place in Spain: the entry of the Santander Bank to the ownership of three emblematic Meliá hotels; the purchase of the Six Senses Ibiza by the Statute Group; the purchase that was made Ikos Resorts of two establishments of the Beach Hotels Group and the AC Barcelona Forum.

Alarm over the growth of tourism

Despite what it may seem, these data are not at all encouraging for the sector. In fact, businessmen in the sector fear that the accelerated growth that is being seen in the sector take its toll and become a bubble which could end up causing a fall in the sector, something similar to what happened at the time with the real estate sector. They fear, in short, go from a ‘boom’ to a ‘crash’.

“We have to take this growth with much caution, “because it is not sustainable to grow like this either.” These were the words he expressed last January Jose Luis Zoredaexecutive vice president of Excelturin Exceltur’s quarterly report, in which the results for 2023 were assessed and the outlook for 2024 was presented.