Key takeaways
- Spain's hotel prices have surged 7.5% this summer, with coastal hotspots like Mallorca, Ibiza and the Costa del Sol seeing the sharpest increases — book early or budget more.
- Lesser-known Spanish regions such as Extremadura, the Basque Country and inland Andalucía offer comparable quality and culture at significantly lower prices.
- For similar or lower budgets, tailor-made alternatives like Sri Lanka, the Maldives or a twin-centre combining two destinations can deliver more experience per pound spent.
Spain has been the UK's favourite summer holiday destination for decades, and that loyalty is starting to cost us. Hotel accommodation prices across Spain rose by 7.5% this summer, pushing them above the EU average and making the country's most in-demand coastal resorts noticeably more expensive than they were even twelve months ago. If you booked late, or you're still browsing, the numbers you're seeing now are not last year's numbers — and they're unlikely to soften before August.
The price pressure is sharpest in the places people most want to be. Mallorca, Ibiza, Tenerife, Marbella and Barcelona are all absorbing increased visitor demand, reduced new hotel supply in protected areas, and the knock-on effect of Spain's ongoing debate about over-tourism. That debate is real and legitimate — but its practical impact on your holiday is simple: you'll pay more for the same room than you would have two summers ago, and availability at the mid-range level is tighter than ever by June.
If Spain is non-negotiable, the smartest response is to move slightly off the beaten path. The Basque Country — San Sebastián in particular — offers world-class food, dramatic coastline and genuinely interesting cities without the resort pricing model. Extremadura remains one of Europe's most underrated regions: Roman ruins, medieval villages, extraordinary wildlife and very reasonable hotels, all within easy reach of Seville or Madrid. Inland Andalucía, the area around Ronda and the white villages of the Sierra de Grazalema, gives you everything that makes southern Spain compelling without a sunlounger surcharge baked into every room rate.
Timing still matters, too. Spain's shoulder season — late May, early June or mid-September into October — can shave a meaningful amount off accommodation costs while offering better weather in many regions than the height of August. If your family's travel window is locked to school holidays, being flexible on destination within Spain is more effective than hoping peak-season prices will drop.
For travellers whose loyalty is to the experience rather than the destination — beach, warmth, good food, something that actually feels like a proper holiday — the value case for looking beyond Spain deserves an honest look. Sri Lanka, for instance, offers a tailor-made two-week itinerary combining cultural sites, wildlife and Indian Ocean beaches for a total cost that frequently undercuts a comparable Spanish beach hotel package. The flight is longer, but the experience is proportionally richer, and the price-to-quality ratio at the luxury level is genuinely difficult to match in Western Europe right now.
The Maldives, which many UK travellers assume sits far outside their budget, has become more accessible as a wider range of resorts has opened up across different price points. A well-planned five or six-night Maldives stay, combined with a few nights in Sri Lanka or Dubai as a twin-centre, can be structured to cost less than a full-service Spanish resort week in high season once flights, transfers and all-inclusive pricing are compared honestly. It's worth asking the question before assuming the answer.
Twin-centre holidays more broadly are worth considering if Spain has started to feel expensive for what it delivers. Combining Lisbon with the Algarve, Seville with Morocco, or Marrakech with a quieter Atlantic coast gives a journey that feels more considered and often comes in at a better overall price than a single high-demand destination in peak season. The key is having someone help you structure it properly so that travel time between the two points works in your favour rather than eating into the holiday itself.
None of this is to suggest Spain isn't worth visiting — it absolutely is. But the era of Spain as the automatic, reliably affordable summer default is changing, and the travellers who adjust their planning approach now will get significantly more from their budget than those who book out of habit. Whether that means shifting your Spanish destination, moving your travel dates, or opening the conversation to somewhere new, the options are better than the price tags on the popular resorts suggest.
If you'd like help working out which approach fits your budget and travel dates best, our team plans exactly this kind of itinerary — Spain included. We can tell you where prices are reasonable, where they're not, and what the alternatives genuinely look like for your specific situation. That conversation costs nothing and usually saves considerably more than it takes.