Insights
South West Hotels Disappearing as Holiday Lets Boom (8 Years in Decline)
Oct
The Short VersionThe South West has lost hotels every year since 2018. It had 1,505 hotels in March 2026, down 165 since 2019. Over the same period it gained 420 registered holiday lets, taking it to 1,280. The region now has 85 holiday lets for every 100 hotels, the highest ratio in the UK.
In Bude, on the north Cornwall coast, the Kerenza Hotel has stopped taking guests. Its owner told Cornwall Council the hotel could no longer cover its costs. The council has since approved plans to turn part of it into flats, The Post reported.
It’s one hotel. But the official figures show it’s part of a long trend. Homefords analysed ONS business counts and found that the South West has fewer hotels every year, while its holiday lets have grown in almost every year.
South West hotels have fallen eight years in a row
The South West had 1,685 hotels in 2018. Every year since, the number has dropped. By March 2026 it was down to 1,505.
Holiday lets went the other way. They grew from 860 in 2019 to 1,280 in 2026, a rise of 49%. The biggest jump came in the year to March 2022, when the region added 210.
| Year | Hotels | Change on previous year | Holiday lets | Holiday lets per 100 hotels |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2018 | 1,685 | +5 | 800 | 47 |
| 2019 | 1,670 | −15 | 860 | 51 |
| 2020 | 1,660 | −10 | 855 | 52 |
| 2021 | 1,625 | −35 | 870 | 54 |
| 2022 | 1,610 | −15 | 1,080 | 67 |
| 2023 | 1,560 | −50 | 1,200 | 77 |
| 2024 | 1,545 | −15 | 1,290 | 83 |
| 2025 | 1,520 | −25 | 1,265 | 83 |
| 2026 | 1,505 | −15 | 1,280 | 85 |
Hotels (SIC 55100) and registered holiday let businesses (SIC 55209), South West, March of each year. Source: ONS UK Business Counts via Nomis.
The gap between hotels and holiday lets is closing
In 2010 the South West had 1,690 hotels and 635 holiday lets. Hotels outnumbered holiday lets by more than two and a half to one.
By 2019 the gap was 810. Now it’s 225. The South West has 85 holiday lets for every 100 hotels, the highest ratio of any UK region. Across the UK the figure is 48.
The region also has more registered holiday lets than anywhere else in the UK. Scotland is second with 1,110. Holiday lets are growing faster elsewhere, as we cover in our post on the Midlands and the North. But no region comes close to the South West for sheer numbers.
Why are South West hotels closing?
The figures don’t record why a hotel closes. But the reasons owners give are familiar across the industry.
In its planning application, the Kerenza Hotel’s owner said the staycation boom that followed Covid had faded. Rising costs, higher minimum wages and recent tax increases had added to the pressure, according to The Post.
Some hotel sites are being reinvented rather than lost. In Newquay, the 72-bedroom Sands Resort hotel was bought by the Watergate Bay group in 2022. It reopened in 2024 as SeaSpace, with 56 self-catering studios and apartments, as The Caterer reported. Each unit has its own kitchen, the kind of setup guests usually look for in a holiday let.
Guests still want the South West
Fewer hotels doesn’t mean fewer visitors. Demand for short-term lets in the region is still rising.
Cornwall had the second-biggest rise in guest nights of any UK local authority in 2025. Guests spent 449,450 more nights in short-term lets there than in 2024, up 13%, according to the ONS. Cornwall is also one of nine areas that together account for almost a quarter of all UK guest nights in short-term lets.
That fits the business counts. Visitors are still coming to the South West. But more of the places they can stay are now holiday lets rather than hotels.
“Visitors are still pouring into the South West. The region has lost hotels eight years running anyway.
Small independent hotels are carrying higher wages, higher taxes and higher rates, and when one closes the building usually goes to flats. Holiday lets are picking up the guests, but they don’t employ a reception, a kitchen and a cleaning team the way a 30-bedroom hotel does. Lose enough hotels and coastal towns lose the jobs that came with them.”
Steven ForesterSales Manager, Homefords
Wales and Scotland show the same pattern
The South West isn’t alone. Hotel numbers also fell in Wales and Scotland between 2019 and 2026, while holiday lets grew strongly in both.
| Area | Hotels 2019 | Hotels 2026 | Change | Holiday lets 2019 | Holiday lets 2026 | Change |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| South West | 1,670 | 1,505 | −9.9% | 860 | 1,280 | +48.8% |
| Wales | 825 | 750 | −9.1% | 305 | 545 | +78.7% |
| Scotland | 2,050 | 1,985 | −3.2% | 725 | 1,110 | +53.1% |
| London | 1,935 | 2,330 | +20.4% | 300 | 485 | +61.7% |
| United Kingdom | 13,190 | 13,415 | +1.7% | 4,050 | 6,495 | +60.4% |
Source: ONS UK Business Counts via Nomis. Counts rounded to the nearest 5.
Wales lost 75 hotels, a fall of 9.1%, and gained 240 holiday lets, up 78.7%. Scotland lost 65 hotels and gained 385 holiday lets.
London goes the opposite way. It gained 395 hotels over the same period, the strongest hotel growth of any region.
What the figures don’t tell us
These are counts of registered business sites. They don’t show that holiday lets caused hotels to close, or that guests are switching from one to the other. Hotels close for many reasons, from costs to retirement.
The holiday let figures also only include businesses registered for VAT or PAYE. Many South West owners let a single cottage without registering, so the total number of holiday let properties in the region is much higher than 1,280.
What the data does show is a region where the mix of places to stay has shifted steadily for most of a decade. For interactive charts and a lookup for every region, see our full research on the UK holiday let boom.
Download the dataHotels and registered holiday let businesses for every UK region, every year from 2010 to 2026.
Download the data (Excel)Running a holiday let in the South West?
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Shop for holiday letsShop for hotelsSource: Office for National Statistics, UK Business Counts (local units by industry), via Nomis, and Office for National Statistics, Short-term lets through online collaborative economy platforms, UK. Contains public sector information licensed under the Open Government Licence v3.0. Business counts are rounded to the nearest 5 by ONS. Media enquiries: hello@homefords.co.uk