If you are an investor, operator or have anything to do with the hotel industry in Medellín, you have already noticed that the last few months, both in terms of occupancy and sales, have not been up to par with the last half of 2024. Bookings were down, occupancy dropped and the overall pace cooled. It is tempting to think that this is a warning sign, but it is not. It is simply confirmation of a truth that many seem to ignore: tourism is not a straight line.

Every destination has ups and downs. So does Medellín. Although it is growing in annual figures, it has sluggish months, seasons with low demand and weeks where rooms remain empty. And that doesn't mean something is wrong. It means that tourism works like any other market: with cycles... Not to mention that there are more and more hotels and more Aribnb's increasing the number of players that must compete to accommodate tourists.

No destination is perfect all year round

April and May are the rainiest months of the year in Medellín, with average rainfall above 200 mm. It coincides with the lowest hotel occupancy records of the year ( 63.3 % in April, 63% in May according to the Tourism Intelligence System). There are no relevant city events, and the weather does not help. It is logical that these are not strong months. Tourists, both in their reviews and in travel blogs, spread the word about when to come and when not to come. And for those who visited Medellín in April or May of this year, a series of floods confirmed the rumor. The reputation of those months feeds itself.

March also shows signs of weakening: although it maintains good occupancy, it does so due to the inertia of the end of the year. Easter Week in April, which could be a boost, tends to send tourism to the beach. And Medellín, as a Catholic city in tourist transition, does not yet offer a powerful urban entertainment program for that week.

It is not that Medellín has a defect. It is normal for tourist cities to have seasons. In Barcelona, August becomes unlivable because of the crowds and the heat. In Cartagena, October and November are dead months due to rain and no cruise ships. In New York, January is a tourist wasteland after the holiday frenzy. The idea that a successful destination should have even occupancy year-round is naive. That's why annual figures are averaged. And that's why you have to know how to read what lies beneath the average.

The tourist's real calendar

The peaks in Medellín are clear and are defined by events, dry weather and popular culture. August is undisputed because of the Flower Fair. November, although invisible to gringo blogs, is increasingly positioned with massive concerts, holiday bridges and the preamble to December (including the dawn of dawn) and December has Christmas, lights, rumba, tradition. January is still strong for vacations.

According to 2024 data, July and August exceeded 70% and 76% respectively, November had over 78% of occupancy. December reached 72%. That doesn't happen by chance. It happens because there is something to do, something to see, and an accompanying climate.

Not everyone who loses is because the market is going badly

With more hotels, more Airbnbs and more players wanting to enter, the competition gets tougher. Whoever doesn't understand the seasonal cycles, the real tourist calendar and the logics of supply, loses. But that doesn't mean that Medellín is bad. It means that the market is maturing. And those who don't adapt, stay.

Many new operators believe that because the city sets annual records, every month should have equal sales and occupancy. That has never been the case. The 2025 average occupancy is at 67.4 %. But that number is where it is because we are coming off the off-season (April and May just passed). Exactly the same thing happened in 2024, when the first half of the year was weak and the second half corrected: occupancy shot up in July, August, November and December, and that's what lifted the annual average to 70 %.

However, there is a fundamental caveat: that average of 70 % in 2024 mixes in the same statistic the best hotels in the best areas with the worst hotels in the weakest sectors. That means that well-operated and well-located hotels fared much better than average. And poorly managed or poorly located hotels fared even worse.

In Blackroom our average occupancy is 72% in our assets in Medellín, having assets such as Blues Suites with an average occupancy of 80% in 2024 (with its high and low months) and new assets such as Urbit which opened in June 2024 starting with occupancies of 40% the first months and averaging 62% by the end of the year, as is normal for an opening hotel and that will surely reach our corporate average in its stabilization year this 2025.

That is the true sign of market maturity: it is no longer enough to be there, you have to compete. The problem is not that Medellín has bad months, all cities have them. The problem is naively believing that it should not have them.