Solar eclipse drives Europe hotel prices to over $1,000 a night

Hotel and short-term rental prices surged to over $1,000 a night in parts of Europe where a solar eclipse will be visible. The solar eclipse, which will be visible in the U.K., Iceland, northern Spain, Greenland and Portugal on Aug. 12, drove a surge in travel demand across destinations, and hospitality businesses in the region are capitalizing on the opportunity. Some European cities in the path of the eclipse saw hotel and short-term rental prices surge, such as Iceland's capital Reykjavik and Spanish cities like A Coruña and Bilbao, according to data from commercial travel and hospitality firm Lighthouse Intelligence, obtained when checking prices in mid-July, around four weeks out from the event. In Reykjavik, hotel prices were on average $1,012 for a night during the week of the solar eclipse, double the rate for the same period in 2025, per Lighthouse. Meanwhile, short-term rentals averaged $1,172 a night during the week, 178% higher than the same time the previous year. In Bilbao, short-term rentals were $1,088 per night, up 206% from the same time last year. Hotel rooms were priced at $315 a night, up 35% on the previous year. Santiago de Compostela, which lies just outside the path of totality, was the cheapest destination at $193 per night for hotels, up 13% since last year, per Lighthouse data. "Testing what the market can bear when it comes to pricing is a common practice by hoteliers in the face of 'once in a lifetime' demand events, like FIFA World Cups or Taylor Swift concerts," Jonathan Gough, content marketing team lead at Lighthouse, told CNBC. However, the latest data shared with CNBC showed that the lowest available hotel rates for Aug. 12 in Reykjavik and Iceland's wider capital region had fallen 46% and 51%, respectively, from mid-May, to $805 and $793 when checked on Aug. 10, reflecting heavy discounting closer to the event. Gough said that different hoteliers chose different pricing strategies. "Iceland priced the eclipse speculatively to begin with. Rooms were listed at three to four times normal levels more than a year out, and hotels have spent the past three months walking that back." Hotels in northern Spain took the reverse course, Gough said, with hotels priced normally in the spring, and raising rates only as bookings filled up. "The demand is genuinely extraordinary on eclipse day. A Coruña is seeing over five times its normal demand levels," Gough said. "When a city with a limited room supply meets a once-in-a-generation event, the price becomes the deciding factor in who gets a bed for the night." Short-term rental boost Data analytics platform AirDNA said that short-term rentals are seeing a significant boost in Spain and Iceland due to the large share of available rentals within the path of the solar eclipse. Per AirDNA, nearly 64% of Iceland's roughly 9,000 available rentals are within the path of totality. Around 21% of Spain's roughly 365,400 listings are in the path, according to the AirDNA data published on Aug. 11. Lighthouse's Gough said the solar eclipse is creating a "powerful," but "concentrated," boost in tourism for the few days around the event. Rentals within the path in Iceland are seeing demand up 40% from a year earlier, compared with 13.2% across the rest of the country. In Spain, where temperatures have exceeded 104 degrees Fahrenheit this summer, demand for the night of Aug. 11-12 is down 1.6% year over year within the path, compared with a 9.1% decline across the rest of Spain, per AirDNA. Gough said that the trend isn't a "season changer" for hotels or rentals, especially as heatwaves and extreme weather events have travelers rethinking how they vacation. "An event like the eclipse fills rooms for a night or two; the climate-driven shift in where Europeans now want to spend their summer months will be a trend that far outlasts it," he added.