Casa El Olivo. Three bedrooms, five beds, three bathrooms, and a shared pool in Las Negras, Almería: 3,436 euros per night. Two-bedroom apartment, three beds, and four guests in Estepona (Málaga), at 4,233 euros per night. These are just two listings from the Airbnb platform for the night of August 1 to 2, 2027, the eve of next year’s solar eclipse which will only be fully visible in southern Andalusia throughout Spain. This is the date that has driven prices so high that a double room at the Larios Málaga hotel is offered at 7,592 euros on Booking. “This year’s eclipse has acted as a trigger,” say the Holidu platform, which has 3,900 accommodations in the area where the eclipse will be fully visible and notes that after this year’s phenomenon, demand has multiplied sixfold compared to any other day.
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The solar event will be visible next year in a narrow strip of the peninsula. From east to west, it includes barely the Cabo de Gata natural park in Almería and the western Almería coast. It continues through the Granada Tropical Coast, the entire Costa del Sol—from Nerja to Estepona—and continues through Cádiz, the province where the event will last the longest, exceeding four minutes. From there, only Ceuta and Melilla will also enjoy the moment when the Moon comes between the Earth and the Sun. And if demand was already huge for such tourist territories, the feelings left by the recent eclipse and the spectacular images have skyrocketed demand. Holidu indicates that it has multiplied by 8.5 in recent days in the Andalusian provinces where next year’s eclipse will be visible. And just yesterday, Thursday, still with the aftereffects of the event, they multiplied by six compared to a normal day. The most sought-after night is that one “because people want to be in the area the night before.” The rest of the days already have “a clearly lower weight,” the same sources indicate.
It is easy to verify these data. For example, in the capital of Málaga, there is no availability in hotels such as Miramar, Only You, Aurea Palacio de la Tinta, or Zenit. And the situation is similar in the rest of Andalusia: there is also no room at the Tarifa hostel or hotel establishments in Almería such as Exe and Costasol, to name just a few random examples. “There is already a lot of demand in hotels in Cádiz and the Costa del Sol for that date,” confirm sources from the Meliá chain, where they emphasize that, as a result, “prices are also rising.” This happens throughout the sector. That is why the few available beds are very expensive. At the Room Mate Valeria hotel, only three rooms remain at 743 euros per night each.
Hostel room at 999 euros
In other cases, prices have soared to unthinkable limits. Just review offers from platforms like Airbnb. When searching in the province of Málaga, for example, the largest number of apartments, houses, rooms, or flats available are in the 1,000-euro range for that night. There are 140—on Thursday night there were 180, indicating the speed of bookings—and there is something for every taste, including a penthouse for four people at 1,254 euros. “How lucky! You have a unique opportunity to get this accommodation, which is usually booked,” the platform indicates. Another listing is a “central and balcony” hostel room in the capital of Málaga at 999 euros for the night of August 1 to 2, 2027, when a month earlier it costs 110 euros and in spring 58, 17 times less. None of this stops bookings. “The market already shows a significantly higher paid occupancy level” than this year, emphasize the Association of Professionals of Tourist Homes and Apartments of Andalusia.
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On Bolonia beach, in Tarifa, there is a house available for six people at 10,000 euros per night, when other previous and subsequent days cost 344 euros. That is, 29 times more for just that night. “Son de Mar is a house without luxuries, with simple but very comfortable rooms, very comfortable mattresses, and just the right details to make the stay very pleasant,” says the listing. It is rented for almost the entire next summer, except for that night and a few days after. Its host, José Luis, says he has received two calls from abroad with “very attractive” financial offers and another from an English agency that would act as an intermediary, but he has declined them. “Although I usually don’t open the calendar until January, on this occasion, due to the interest the eclipse arouses, I have opened those dates and increased the price as I have seen many others in this area do,” he emphasizes. He also has another accommodation for six people at the same price. If all goes well, he can earn 20,000 euros for a single night. And he is not the only one who can literally make a fortune. Just search for accommodation on Booking where everything goes wild: the company Living4malaga offers several apartments around the historic center of Málaga’s capital and many of them exceed 13,000 euros that night. The most expensive, 200 square meters and seven beds, costs 16,674 euros.
Abusive prices
“Are these abusive prices? Yes. Can anything be done? No. Since they are tourist accommodations, there is absolute freedom of prices,” says Rubén Sánchez, secretary general of the FACUA-Consumers in Action federation. The official indicates that it is currently impossible to act on this type of price increase because there is nothing to prevent it. “It’s the market, nothing more,” he emphasizes. “Illegality would be canceling an already made reservation and then putting the accommodation up at a higher price. Or that you book something and then they raise the price. There you can claim damages, but for a price increase, even as large as this occasion, no.”
Sources from the Ministry of Consumption assure that the existence of dynamic pricing—adjusted according to supply and demand—is “a matter of growing concern” in the Government because it can lead “to an unconscious choice by consumers, as well as unjustified price increases in moments of greater need.” However, the General Law for the Defense of Consumers and Users was modified at the end of 2024 to prohibit price increases due to higher demand in contexts of urgency, risk, or need such as a DANA or an earthquake. That is, any situation that can be classified as a civil protection emergency which, for now, does not include eclipses.
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