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The construction of new hotels in cities where the average occupancy rate is below 80% raises many questions today, both from an economic and an environmental and strategic perspective. At a time when sustainability, profitability, and social responsibility are central to decision-making, this issue deserves careful consideration.

1. An Increasingly Fragile Economic Logic

An occupancy rate below 80% generally indicates that the hotel supply already exceeds real demand. Continuing to build in such conditions risks creating oversupply, increasing price pressure, and ultimately reducing profitability for all stakeholders. This situation particularly weakens independent hotels and medium-sized properties, which have fewer financial resources to withstand intensified competition.

Moreover, constant price wars benefit neither investors nor service quality, which is often compromised to preserve already shrinking margins.

2. An Environmental Impact That Is Hard to Justify

Building new hotels requires significant consumption of natural resources: land, water, energy, and construction materials. In areas where existing capacity is not fully utilized, this environmental impact becomes difficult to justify.

In contrast, renovating existing or abandoned buildings represents a more responsible alternative. Rehabilitating existing structures helps limit land artificialization, reduce carbon footprints, and revitalize neglected urban areas while still meeting market needs.

3. Abandoned Buildings: An Underexploited Opportunity

In many cities, hotels or tourism-related buildings are left abandoned due to a lack of strategic vision or financial resources. Yet these structures represent considerable potential. Renovation can be less costly than new construction and aligns with sustainable development and urban heritage preservation.

Reusing existing buildings also allows the hotel offer to better match new traveler expectations: smaller hotels, hybrid concepts, experience-driven properties, wellness-oriented hotels, or sustainable tourism concepts.

4. Competition That Becomes Counterproductive

The proliferation of hotels in already saturated markets increases competition that can become unhealthy, where differentiation is based mainly on price rather than quality, innovation, or guest experience. In the long term, this dynamic harms the destination’s image itself, which may come to be seen as standardized and low in quality.

Rather than increasing the number of rooms, it would be more relevant to improve existing properties, invest in staff training, raise service standards, and develop an offer that is better segmented and more aligned with actual demand.

5. Toward a More Responsible and Strategic Approach

Building new hotels should not be an automatic response to presumed tourism growth. Each project should be based on a rigorous analysis of the market, real occupancy rates, seasonality, and environmental impact.

In cities with occupancy rates below 80%, priority should be given to:

• optimizing existing supply,

• renovating and repurposing abandoned buildings,

• focusing on qualitative upgrades rather than quantitative expansion,

• fostering healthier competition based on added value rather than overcapacity.

Conclusion

Continuing to build hotels in already under-occupied cities creates more problems than solutions. In the face of environmental and economic challenges, a more measured, sustainable, and strategic approach is required. Renovating, rethinking, and optimizing existing assets now appears to be a more responsible, profitable, and territory-respectful path than multiplying new constructions.

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