Colombia’s Hotel Occupancy Falls to a Five-Year Low as Revenues and Jobs Decline

Rising wages meet weaker demand, squeezing hotel margins in 2026

Colombia’s hotel industry entered 2026 with occupancy, real revenue, and formal employment all falling at once, a convergence that the country’s main lodging trade group says threatens the financial and labor sustainability of hotels nationwide. 

The Colombian Hotel and Tourism Association (Asociación Hotelera y Turística de Colombia, Cotelco) issued the alert based on the first-quarter results of the National Administrative Department of Statistics (Departamento Administrativo Nacional de Estadística, DANE) and its Encuesta Mensual de Alojamiento (Monthly Lodging Survey, EMA).

“The results of the Monthly Lodging Survey show that the sector is facing a moment of high pressure: we have lower real income, an occupancy rate that cannot recover the levels of previous years, and a reduction in formal employment,” said José Andrés Duarte, president of Cotelco. “The hotel industry remains an engine of economic and regional development, but it needs conditions that allow companies to sustain their operations and keep generating jobs.”

Occupancy at its lowest in five years

The national occupancy rate stood at 48.4% between January and April 2026, the lowest reading for that period in five years. The figure confirms a downward trend: the indicator reached 52.6% in 2022, 52.1% in 2023, 49.5% in 2024, and 49.3% in 2025. The gap against 2022 amounts to 4.2 percentage points; against 2023, the drop was 3.6 points, while the declines relative to 2024 and 2025 moderated to 1.0 and 0.9 points, respectively. Cotelco sees the recent readings as an apparent stabilization around 49%, though still below the levels recorded during the post-pandemic recovery.

Revenue has not recovered since 2024

Even with this stabilization, however, real revenue in the lodging subsector fell 5.1% between January and April 2026 against the same period of 2025. Comparing January-April 2024 with the same months of 2026, the sector has accumulated a real reduction of 6.9% in billings, a sign that hotels have not fully rebuilt their income levels. For the single month of April 2026, real hotel revenue fell 5.7% year-on-year, according to the EMA.

The contraction was far from uniform across the twelve regions the survey tracks. Antioquia posted the deepest fall, with real revenue down 14.8%, followed by the Central region at -12% and Cartagena at -8.9%. At the other end, only the Pacific region and the Santanderes grew, rising 3.3% and 3.4%, respectively.

While wages have gone up in the hotel sector, headcounts of employed people in the sector have gone down. Photo by Rodrigo Salomón Cañas from Pixabay.

Formal employment keeps shrinking

Because of falling revenue, the personnel employed in the subsector fell 4.1% between January and April 2026 against the same period of 2025, a decline Cotelco attributes to staffing adjustments amid weaker tourism activity. Since 2024, formal employment in the subsector has accumulated a contraction of 5.1%. In April alone, national hotel headcount fell 5.4% year-on-year, with the sharpest cuts in San Andrés and Providencia (12.1%), the Pacific region (6.5%), and Antioquia (6.2%).

The employment cuts coincided with sharp wage increases. Hotel salaries rose 10.9% in April year-on-year, and real wages in the sector accumulated growth of 10.3% between January and April, even as revenue fell and staffing shrank. 

The increases were driven largely by the 23% rise in Colombia’s minimum wage that took effect at the start of the year, with the steepest gains in the Amazon region (21.9%), the Coffee Axis (13.7%), the Pacific (13.3%), and the Caribbean Coast (13.0%). The combination of softer demand and rising operating and labor costs, Cotelco warns, is squeezing the finances of establishments that must sustain daily operations with fewer resources.

Occupancy leaders and the Bogotá exception

San Andrés and Providencia recorded the country’s highest occupancy in April, at 62.6%, up from 58.5% a year earlier. Cartagena remained the second-highest at 59.8%, slightly below the 60% of the prior year. Bogotá registered 55.0% occupancy, with a distinct profile: unlike most regions, where leisure is the main reason for travel, business trips contributed 30.1 percentage points to the capital’s total. Nationally, leisure remained the predominant motive, contributing 25.6 points to the 46.3% total occupancy recorded in April, down from 46.7% in the same month of 2025. Room rates rose only modestly on an annual basis, with single accommodation up 1.8% and double up 2.6%, though both fell month-on-month against March.

“The sector is facing a moment of high pressure: we have lower real income, an occupancy rate that cannot recover the levels of previous years, and a reduction in formal employment.” — Jose Andres Duarte, president of Cotelco

Travel agencies diverge from hotels

While hotels contracted, travel agencies showed relative resilience. The DANE Encuesta Mensual de Agencias de Viaje (Monthly Travel Agency Survey, EMAV) reported that agencies’ nominal revenue grew 2.1% in April, even as their headcount fell 2.8% — the lowest reading since the series began — and average nominal wages rose 11.4%. 

Commissions drove the positive result, contributing 1.7 points to the 2.1% total, while the online sales channel edged up to 37.1% of bookings from 36.3%, and the traditional channel slipped to 62.9% from 63.7%. Because hotel figures are stated in real terms and agency figures in nominal terms, the two are not directly comparable, but the divergence points to a shift in how tourism spending is distributed along the value chain.

Cotelco’s requests to the government

The trade group is calling for technical roundtables with the national government to stimulate tourism demand, strengthen formality, and improve operating conditions. Cotelco has also reiterated the urgency of updating the national tourism registry and tightening control over informal supply, which it says undermines the sustainability of destinations, formal employment, and the safety of residents and visitors. The market closed in 2025 with roughly 12,957 hotels and 297,487 rooms.

The current weakness marks a reversal from the sector’s recent peaks. Finance Colombia has previously reported that Colombia hit record-high hotel occupancy and that March occupancy once reached its best level in 11 years, even as domestic tourism approached pre-pandemic levels. The latest DANE readings suggest that rising visitor numbers are no longer translating into stronger results for the formal lodging sector.

According to a first-quarter report released by DANE, hotel occupancy has fallen as tourism revenue slows its growth. Photo by Manuela Jaeger from Pixabay.