I, and much of the European hotel industry, have returned from Madrid after the first industry conference of the year, the Atlantic Ocean Hotel Investors' Summit.
Spain has long been an investor favorite, the main mantra being “never bet against the sun.”
If you were to ask members of my running club, Dulwich AC, and no doubt other running clubs, Spain is now the favorite destination for participation in running events, mostly the marathon distance (if you fly from the United Kingdom, 10 kilometers is not going to work up much of a sweat).
A small handful of years ago, the València Marathon, held usually in December, was — in all politeness — a backwater affair, but it has grown exponentially into a 30,777-person running celebration that attracts world-class athletes.
The 2025 edition featured Alex Yee, two-time Olympic gold medalist and a world champion in the triathlon. He runs for our rival, Kent AC, but I will not hold that against him.
Marathon runners who might not be moving as fast as Yee are seeing what hotel investors realized 10 or so years ago.
Even if you do not complete the hotel deal as expected, at least there is the sunshine, the Mediterranean and a glass of Rioja.
According to the organizers of the València Marathon, the 2024 edition — the 2025 edition will eclipse it — saw €13.6 million in tourism spending, with 54.3% of that emanating from outside of the province of Comunitat Valenciana (Please excuse me, I have to be thorough in my use of diacritics in regard to Valencian name spellings as my family lives in València, and my niece, born there, speaks Llengua Valenciana, the Valencian language, related to Catalan. She very kindly says she reads my CoStar News Hotels articles).
The 2025 edition — officially it is the València Trinidad Alfonso Zurich Marathon — sold out the same days as entries opened. That popularity resulted in the decision that the majority of entrants for the 2026 edition would not be permitted to just sign up but have to go through a lottery, the same as they would do for the really big marathon events such as London and New York City.
That lottery is now closed, and I have numerous disappointed friends in Dulwich AC who received an email bearing bad news.
It will only get harder to enter — good news for hoteliers who might skew average daily rate in relation to demand.
In 2025, 5,347 athletes, or 17.37% of the starting lineup, finished in under three hours.
That is mind-blowing.
I ran my fastest marathon in Chicago in 2002 (31,093 competitors, with the Bank of America Chicago Marathon having been cemented into the running calendar for decades), and I finished in 283rd place. In València I would have finished in 2,071st.
No two marathons are alike, of course, and the weather in Chicago can be cold or hot in October, and chances are, its wine is not as good, but success attracts success, and marathon runners now more than ever are heading to Spain.
Also held in December is the Generali Maratón Málaga, which for the past few years has absorbed runners unable to get into the València Marathon, but increasingly it is becoming a powerhouse in its own right.
It costs approximately €150 to enter Málaga.
This adds up to larger levels of average daily rate and tourism spend.
Perhaps Madrid — as I sit here on the Calle del Dr. Fleming with my breakfast of tostada con tomate y aceite and café con leche — does not need a big marathon to have its hotel rooms all be occupied, but a word to hoteliers: If you have not already noticed the power of runners’ steps, please do so now.
Hotel investors on last-minute buying sprees might soon find themselves unable to purchase a seat on the plane.
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