Accommodation now outstrips dining out in Spain's holiday spending

Accommodation is now eating up the holiday budget

The El Mundo headline is a calculated exaggeration: Spaniards can't afford to eat out on holiday. But the INE (Spain's national statistics institute) data proves it right in essence. For the first time, accommodation has overtaken restaurants as the largest item of spending on domestic travel: 25.5% of the outlay, up 3.3% year on year, compared with the 26.3% that hospitality accounted for at the end of 2024. It's not that people no longer want to eat out: it's that the roof has eaten up the margin.

The INE confirms the overtaking

The most widespread explanation points to speculation in tourist housing and the lack of controls. If a night in a shabby flat costs 120 euros, what's left for a proper meal is a cheap sandwich and a can of soda on the apartment's little terrace. Traditional restaurants are losing ground not for lack of appetite, but of liquidity.

Minimum wage, speculation or showing off

The blame is shared around. One camp points to the rising SMI (Spain's minimum wage) and hotel labour costs; another, to the speculative drift of tourist rentals; a third, to priorities: better to eat badly than give up the Instagram moment. The data doesn't decide.

If the trend continues, next year the INE will confirm the overtaking again and traditional hospitality will keep paying the price. That said, no one rules out consumers eventually putting their foot down: when a beer crosses a certain threshold, the glass may end up filled with something else.