Selling to hotels and holiday rentals in Spain: buyers and seasons

Spanish hotels recorded more than 366.7 million overnight stays in 2025, the highest figure on record, according to the INE's hotel occupancy survey. For a foreign company selling hotel software, linen, energy systems or kitchen equipment, that sounds like one market. It is several, and they buy on very different calendars.

Who you are actually selling to

Type	Who decides	How they buy
Hostal, guesthouse, family hotel (up to ~30 rooms)	The owner, often at the front desk	Fast, on trust, price-sensitive
Mid-sized independent hotel	General manager plus department head	Compares quotes, asks for references
Hotel chain	Central procurement	Approved supplier lists, tenders
Holiday apartments	Owner or management company	Wants automation and fewer site visits

A hostal is a specific category in Spanish tourism law: smaller and simpler than a hotel, often family-run. Many are owned by a self-employed person (autónomo), as are most small holiday-apartment operations.

Spain's large hotel groups buy centrally. Unless you are already an approved supplier, a call to one of their properties tends to end with "head office handles that". For a foreign SME, the realistic entry point is the independent hotel and the property with fewer than 50 rooms, where department heads still have a voice: maintenance for air conditioning, hot water, pools and lifts; the head housekeeper (gobernanta) for linen and amenities; the kitchen for food and equipment; reception and management for software and distribution.

Seasons decide when anyone listens

The INE reports that 49.7 % of available bed places were filled in December 2025, against 70.2 % in the Canary Islands that month. A hotel in Lanzarote is busy while one on the Costa Brava may be closed.

• Mainland coast and Balearics: the November-March low season is when owners refurbish, switch property management systems and sign contracts for the next summer.
• Canary Islands: winter is peak season. Aim for spring and autumn.
• City business hotels (Madrid, Barcelona, Bilbao): steadier occupancy; July and August are often quieter.
• Ski and mountain areas: the reverse of the coast; talk to them in spring and summer.

Within the day, avoid check-out (roughly 10:00-12:00) and the evening check-in rush. Early afternoon is often the quietest moment at a small hotel's front desk. Calls should be in Spanish unless you know the owner speaks English; in tourist areas many do, but do not assume.

What Spanish accommodation buys

Need	What a supplier can offer
Selling rooms	PMS, booking engine, channel manager, website, photography
Compliance	Guest registration, data protection, legionella control, pest control
Keeping the building running	HVAC, hot water, lifts, pool maintenance, refurbishment
Cutting costs	Energy contracts, solar, heat pumps, LED lighting
Guest experience	Linen and industrial laundry, amenities, breakfast supplies, wifi
Staff	Seasonal recruitment, training, uniforms

Arguments that hold up

Guest registration. Royal Decree 933/2021 requires accommodation providers, holiday apartments included, to keep a register of guest data and report it to the Interior Ministry through its SES.Hospedajes platform. Electronic reporting has been enforceable since 2 December 2024. Software that sends the data automatically, without retyping passport details, solves a daily chore for small properties. Detailed rules and some regional arrangements can change, so point prospects to the BOE and the ministry rather than quoting fines.

Downtime is expensive. Broken air conditioning in August becomes one-star reviews within hours. Maintenance contracts sell better when framed as the cost of a room that cannot be let.

Direct bookings. Many independent hotels rely heavily on online travel agencies and want more direct sales. Use the hotel's own numbers; do not promise percentages you cannot guarantee.

Holiday rentals change fast. Rules on tourist apartments are set by regions and city councils and have been tightening in several cities. Check the local situation before building a pitch around it. Keys, cleaning between stays and late check-ins are the operational pain points that do not change.

Contacting them legally

Spain treats companies and sole traders differently. With an autónomo you need a legal basis (usually legitimate interest), an offer related to their business and a check against the Robinson list before calling. Unsolicited marketing email and WhatsApp messages are banned by the LSSI even when the recipient is a company. Our guides on cold calling companies in Spain and cold email under the LSSI cover the details.

Mistakes foreign suppliers make

• Pitching enterprise terms to a 20-room hotel. Three-year contracts and six-week rollouts scare family businesses off.
• Ignoring the calendar. A coastal hotel that does not decide in winter waits a whole year.
• Writing in English only. Have Spanish-language material ready for when they ask for it. A follow-up email after the call keeps the conversation alive.

Building the list

Search by activity (hotels, hostales, holiday apartments, rural accommodation) and by province, then by postcode to separate resort areas from inland towns. In our directory, 92.9 % of phone numbers are mobiles, and in tourist provinces such as Las Palmas (65 %), Málaga (57.8 %) and the Balearics (54.7 %) more than half of the records are sole traders, according to our report on Spanish SMEs by province. Filtering by number of employees separates the family hostal from the staffed hotel. If you sell maintenance, see maintenance contracts with Spanish companies and our maintenance and services use case.