Mabrian’s latest report highlights that understanding why travelers choose hotels vs. rentals in major Latin American cities is key to shaping balanced, quality-focused destination strategies.
Barcelona (Spain), September 23, 2025. – Hotels remain the most popular accommodation choice for travellers visiting Latin America’s main capitals, but short-term rentals are gaining ground, attracting two very different traveller segments: high-spending international visitors, as well as domestic or regional travellers with more moderate purchasing power.
This is the central finding of Mabrian’s latest report, “El Alojamiento Urbano en América Latina: Perfil del viajero y preferencias” (Urban Lodging in Latin America: Traveller Profile and Accommodation Preferences). The study analyses demand profiles for hotel and tourist rental offerings available via the most relevant online lodging and travel agencies (OTAs), across eight Latin American cities —Buenos Aires, Mexico City, Lima, Quito, Bogotá, Medellín, Montevideo, and Rio de Janeiro—, based on cyclical data.
For the destinations analysed, this report “has strategic implications and provides insights into the need to define regulatory and product balance policies that recognise the complementarity of a mix combining hotel beds and tourist rentals,” notes Carlos Cendra, Partner and Director of Marketing and Communications at Mabrian.
The weight, relevance, and role assumed by each of these options in diverse destinations “must respond to the goal of capitalising on international markets with greater purchasing power, offering diverse alternatives for domestic tourism, and, more broadly, building a balanced accommodation supply, adapted to the destinations’ tourism development goals,” Cendra explains regarding the results of this analysis.
Strong Domestic and Regional Markets, Key to Lodging Demand
Data from Mabrian, part of The Data Appeal Company – Almawave Group, shows that hotels remain the leading accommodation choice among travellers visiting these Latin American capitals, accounting for between 60% and 80% of stays in the destinations analysed. Montevideo is the city with the strongest hotel demand (87% of the total), and in almost all destinations hotels are the preferred option for both domestic and international visitors, especially for short stays and business trips.
Another noteworthy conclusion from the study is that tourist rentals are attracting a high-income international travellers, primarily Americans, who rent entire properties for couples, families and groups of up to five people.
Across all the cities studied, domestic tourism remains the primary source of lodging demand, with a particularly significant market share. Following domestic demand, one or two recurring international markets typically appear, most often the United States and nearby or neighbouring Latin American countries.
There are two exceptions to this demand pattern: Buenos Aires and Medellín. In Buenos Aires, short-term rentals and other more affordable alternatives are the preferred lodging choices for domestic travellers, with only 37% choosing to stay in hotels during their visit to the Argentine capital. Moreover, Medellín is the only city where an international market (the United States) ranks first in short-term rentals demand, followed by domestic tourism and travellers from Mexico.
“Natural” Segmentation to Meet Demand Needs
“Our study shows that demand requirements are creating natural segmentation patterns in each of these destinations, adapting the available accommodation supply and the specific conditions of each city to the needs of each traveller profile,” notes the Mabrian spokesperson.
According to the report, hotels are the most popular lodging alternative for couples visiting these cities, an option also preferred by business travellers: in fact, between 20% and 30% of hotel guests in the analysed destinations stay for work purposes. The most in-demand categories are 3- and 4-star hotels, although American travellers show a stronger preference for 4- and especially 5-star properties.
Short-term rentals are the most common option for families or small groups of 3 to 5 people, or even couples planning longer stays. Guests typically prefer entire properties (between 70% and 90% of the total), a trend more pronounced among international travellers. Another key finding is that, on average, 60% of tourist rental users report high or very high incomes, with a slightly higher share among international visitors.
Mabrian data intelligence shows that “the accommodation mix in Latin American urban destinations is becoming increasingly complex and faces decisive regulatory challenges that will shape its future”, states Cendra. However, “at the same time, new hotel models and alternative accommodation formulas are creating opportunities—whether to attract emerging traveller segments, diversify carrying capacity, or even develop tourism in lesser-known destinations, in a more agile way.” To achieve this, Mabrian’s expert advocates for an “integrated, data-driven strategy is needed to establish the right balance between hotel accommodation and tourist rentals, based on evolving demand trends and the specific conditions of each destination.”
Mabrian presents this report to provide a strategic perspective on the opportunities and challenges facing tourism in Latin America, ahead of the upcoming Latin American International Tourism Fair (FIT) 2025 in Buenos Aires (September 27th to 30th). Recognized as the region’s leading meeting point for the tourism industry, the event highlights innovation and technology through FIT TECH, the dedicated vertical of the TRAVEL FORUM LATAM congress, in which Mabrian will participate.
Download the full report, in Spanish, available in Mabrian’s website
About Mabrian
Mabrian Technologies (Mabrian), the global travel intelligence and tourism advisory partner, is a company specialized in providing travel intelligence services worldwide. Founded in 2013, Mabrian joined The Data Appeal Company – Almawave Group in 2023.
Combining Big Data and Artificial Intelligence (AI) techniques, simultaneous insights from over 30 global data sources, and the comprehensive travel intelligence expertise of its team of specialists, Mabrian is able to identify and predict tourism dynamics and trends worldwide. Mabrian’s modular dashboard grants access to a holistic monitoring centre that traces, measures and cross-analyses travellers’ full journey: air connectivity and demand, hotels, holiday rentals, travellers’ sentiment and demand drivers, spending patterns and behaviour, mobility, and sustainability.
Currently operating in over 40 countries, Mabrian caters to the needs of travel & tourism industry, companies, entities, and public bodies, ranging from all-levels Destination Management Offices (national, regional, local), hotel companies and chains or transportation, to tourism-related consultancies (marketing, promotion, strategy, investment, etc.), providing up-to-date, contextual, predictive and insightful data intelligence for strategic and business development, as well as for policy and decision-making.
Learn more about how to unlock travel intelligence potential at www.mabrian.com
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The Data Appeal Company – Almawave Group
The Data Appeal Company, through a proprietary algorithm based on artificial intelligence, machine learning and semantic analysis collects, measures and analyses all feedback posted online, combining it with geographic and contextual data, offering the regions and enterprises the opportunity to optimise the business’s potential, gain in-depth market knowledge and establish a competitive advantage. The Data Appeal Company SpA (formerly Travel Appeal) has belonged to the Almawave Group since 2022.
In 2023 the company acquired 70% of the share capital of Mabrian Technologies S.L., a Spanish company specializing in Travel and Destination Intelligence solutions, to consolidate its international positioning.
The company’s mission is to simplify the use and understanding of data to help companies and tourist destinations make effective and informed decisions. www.datappeal.io