Hotel construction cost in Spain: per room and per m²

In PEM (direct works budget) per built m², finished building excluding full FF&E, mid-cost area:

The per-room ratio is built on the hotel's total floor area divided by the number of keys, so it incorporates all common areas; this is why it grows faster than the per-m² ratio as the category rises: a 5-star hotel does not only have more expensive finishes, it has many more m² of restaurants, spa and services per room. For that reason the two magnitudes should be presented together and never one in place of the other.

Catering installations. Professional kitchens, cold rooms, extraction and staff areas form a dense technical block that exists neither in offices nor in housing, with ratios well above the building's average.

Sound insulation. Acoustic insulation between rooms and against common areas is an operator requirement as much as a regulatory one, and it affects partitions, doors, services and joinery.

Serial wet rooms. A full bathroom per room concentrates plumbing, waterproofing and finishes in repetitive cycles: industrialisation (prefabricated bathroom pods) is a real cost and schedule lever in hotels.

FF&E and OS&E. Furniture, equipment and operating supplies are budgeted separately from the works and are usually procured by the operator or to its standards. In compared budgets, always check whether the figures include them: it is the first cause of apparent deviations between hotel projects.

The weight of common areas. The proportion between room area and total area (usually between 55 and 70 % depending on category) is the design parameter that most conditions the per-key ratio.

Operators assess investment per room against expected revenue per available room. For cost analysis, this has a practical consequence: project trade-offs are negotiated in terms of brand standards (minimum room sizes, finish levels, service programme), and the cost consultant preparing or analysing hotel budgets needs the operator's standards manual as much as the bill of quantities. Conversions of existing buildings to hotels follow the logic of full renovation, with acoustic and services upgrading as the dominant items.

A hotel sits in 2026 between €1,400 and €1,900/m² PEM at 3 stars and from €2,200/m² in the upper segment, with per-room ratios from €90,000 to over €200,000 depending on category. Figures are only comparable with three clarifications: FF&E included or not, proportion of common areas, and level in the budget chain as per from PEM to total cost.