The COVID crisis has seen the number of hotels put up for sale in the Valencian Community shoot up by 72%.
The successive confinements and border closures, aimed at stopping the spread of coronavirus, have put businessmen in the sector on the ropes, with many of them now unable to continue funding their businesses, the result being the appearance of for sale signs in 57 Valencian, Alicante and Castellón hotels.
The Alicante Province, for the most part the Costa Blanca, is the one with the most hotels on offer, with a total of 29 establishments.
Revenue per available room (the main indicator of the profitability of a hotel) has fallen by half and dozens of establishments have remained closed this summer due to the lack of tourists. Mutual funds try to buy the buildings at a 30% discount, but the owners are reluctant to sell at such heavy discounts.
The data from the real estate platform Idealista reveals that last summer there were 33 hotel establishments for sale in the Valencian Community compared to the 57 available now, which implies an increase of 72%.
The increase is more than double the Spanish average (30%) and is due to the fact that the tourism crisis has had a stronger impact on the coastal provinces (Spanish travellers have been opting for less crowded destinations such as Pyrenees).
The most expensive hotel on the market is in the Serra Gelada area of Benidorm and costs 41.2 million euros. In the Grao de Gandia another is offered for 40.6 million euros.
The general secretary of the Hotel Association of Benidorm, Costa Blanca and the Valencian Community (Hosbec), Nuria Monte, says that a large number of the hotels that are currently for sale in the province of Alicante were already undergoing the process, and that most of them are small family businesses.
“They are establishments that have usually passed from parents to children, but who have now decided not to continue, something that has been by the pandemic.”
Image: The abandoned Rocas Blancas hotel, located on the N332 at the entrance to Santa Pola, will cost you a mere €4million
