Hotels with dozens of rooms being offered for just tens of thousands of euros, large hospitality properties priced below €150,000, and reductions in some cases exceeding 90% from initial values. Chianciano Terme is becoming one of Italy’s most interesting laboratories for understanding what happens when hotel supply outlives the tourism model it was originally built to serve

In Chianciano Terme today, it is possible to find a hotel with more than fifty rooms carrying a minimum bid of just €67,000.

Another hospitality complex of approximately 3,300 sqm is being offered with a base price of €119,000.

Hotel Vittoria, comprising 38 physical rooms across the main building and annex, has a base price of €273,000 and a minimum bid of €204,750.

Another property in Via dei Colli is due to return to market with a base price of €216,000 and a minimum bid of €162,000.

Taken individually, these numbers may look like anomalies.

When they become numerous and concentrated in the same destination, however, they stop being isolated real estate cases.

They become a market signal.

And that is precisely what makes Chianciano Terme particularly relevant for InvestimentiAlberghieri.it.

The question is no longer:

“Why is this hotel so cheap?”

The question becomes:

“Why is a significant portion of the hotel stock in one of Italy’s historically most important thermal destinations struggling to find a new economic equilibrium?”

This is not about one hotel

The transactions currently on the market or scheduled over the coming months show a concentration that is difficult to ignore.

Asset	Scheduled date	Base price	Minimum bid
Viale Guido Baccelli 119	29 September 2026	€89,000	€67,000
Hotel Vittoria – Via del Giglio 32	15 December 2026	€273,000	€204,750
Via dei Colli 65	29 October 2026	€216,000	€162,000
Hotel in Viale Guido Baccelli, approx. 3,298 sqm	29 October 2026	€119,000	approx. €90,000
Viale della Libertà 523	10 November 2026	€827,000	€621,000
Viale Guido Baccelli 133	19 November 2026	€450,000	€338,000
Via Le Piane 35	18 November 2026	new sale indicated at €147,000	to be verified against sale notice

These assets have different characteristics and cannot be compared simply on price.

But the concentration is significant.

At Viale Guido Baccelli 119, for example, the property description indicates an inventory of more than fifty rooms, in addition to a kitchen, restaurant, bar and common areas.

The minimum bid is €67,000.

The implied price per room becomes almost paradoxical.

And that is precisely where the most obvious analytical mistake must be avoided.

A low price does not automatically mean value

A distressed or judicial sale price does not automatically represent the market value of the broader Chianciano hotel sector.

Each property may have:

• different maintenance conditions;

• planning issues;

• obsolete building systems;

• significant CAPEX requirements;

• no transferable going concern;

• accessibility constraints;

• fire-safety upgrades;

• inefficient layouts;

• reopening costs;

• transaction-specific issues.

A judicial sale price should therefore not be treated as a straightforward real estate comparable.

But when multiple hotels in the same destination simultaneously reach exceptionally low pricing levels, the phenomenon deserves an industrial interpretation.

The market is not simply assigning a price to buildings.

It is assigning a price to the risk of making those buildings economically productive again.

Chianciano has a very large hotel stock relative to today’s product

To understand the issue, it is necessary to look at the structure of supply.

Chianciano’s urban regeneration strategy reports that, in 2022, the destination had 131 hotels and 5,614 rooms.

Supply was heavily concentrated in the traditional mid-market segment:

• 87 three-star hotels, with 3,582 rooms;

• 22 four-star hotels, with 1,578 rooms;

• 14 two-star hotels;

• 5 one-star hotels;

• no five-star hotels.

Including non-hotel accommodation, the destination reached 169 establishments and 12,272 bed spaces.

This is a critical point.

Chianciano does not suffer from a shortage of accommodation.

It starts from a very large supply of traditional hotel product.

The real question is how much of that inventory still matches contemporary demand.

The hotel stock was built for a different form of tourism

The historical model of Italy’s thermal destinations was fundamentally different from today’s.

Guests often travelled specifically for spa treatments.

They stayed for several days.

Sometimes for weeks.

They relied on:

• full-board packages;

• hotel restaurants;

• in-house services;

• reimbursed or structured thermal treatments;

• packaged stays;

• traditional tour operators and intermediaries.

Hotels could therefore be designed around:

• large numbers of relatively small rooms;

• substantial dining rooms;

• kitchens sized for full-board operations;

• extensive common areas;

• high staffing levels;

• service-intensive operations.

That product had a coherent industrial logic.

Demand changed.

The buildings, inevitably, changed much more slowly.

Today, average length of stay is the real issue

In 2025, Chianciano Terme recorded:

220,406 arrivals

and

447,446 overnight stays.

Average length of stay was:

2.03 nights.

This is therefore not a destination with no tourism.

More than 220,000 arrivals still represent meaningful demand.

The issue is different.

That demand generates very short stays.

And it is difficult to sustain a hotel system historically designed around extended thermal stays with a demand profile that now behaves in a fundamentally different way.

The problem is the relationship between demand and supply

This changes the interpretation entirely.

It is not enough to count how many tourists arrive.

The relevant relationship is:

demand + available capacity + opening days + pricing + cost structure.

A hotel can have an extremely low real estate value even in a destination that continues to attract visitors.

That can happen simply because it cannot generate enough EBITDA to remunerate:

• operations;

• CAPEX;

• debt;

• equity.

This is the question that should precede any investment analysis undertaken through Investhotel.it.

The comparison with the surrounding area is even more revealing

The Valdichiana Senese did not experience uniformly negative tourism performance in 2025.

During the same year:

Montepulciano

• arrivals +1.46%;

• overnight stays +3.21%;

• average stay 2.43 nights.

Chiusi

• arrivals +9.71%;

• overnight stays +9.41%.

Sinalunga

• arrivals +6.75%;

• overnight stays +7.99%.

Chianciano, by contrast, recorded a decline.

This matters.

It means the issue cannot automatically be blamed on southern Tuscany or on an absence of tourism demand across the wider area.

The problem also concerns destination positioning and the ability of the existing hotel product to capture new forms of demand.

Chianciano is already reducing capacity

The system is already adjusting.

The Tuscany regional tourism report for 2025 records a decline in Chianciano’s bed capacity compared with 2024.

That is significant.

Part of the stock is already leaving the market.

But the objective should probably not be to preserve every existing room.

It should be to determine which rooms should still exist, and within what type of product.

Not every former hotel needs to become a hotel again

This is probably the most sensitive issue.

When a destination has an excess of obsolete hotel stock, the answer cannot automatically be:

refurbish everything and reopen everything.

For some buildings, hotel use will remain the highest and best use.

For others, the optimal use may be:

• residential;

• senior living;

• serviced apartments;

• medical hospitality;

• rehabilitation;

• healthcare;

• co-living;

• assisted living;

• mixed-use.

Any conversion is, of course, dependent on planning regulations, restrictions and economic feasibility.

But preserving hotel use in every building simply because it was historically a hotel risks protecting physical supply rather than economic value.

The real issue is the cost of transformation

Hotel Vittoria is a good example.

The minimum bid is €204,750 for 38 physical rooms.

That implies approximately:

€5,390 per key.

But the number has very little meaning without understanding:

• CAPEX;

• FF&E;

• building systems;

• fire-safety compliance;

• technical upgrades;

• pre-opening costs;

• working capital;

• financing costs.

The relevant metric is:

Total Investment Cost / effectively operational rooms.

Once real estate pricing falls far enough, the acquisition price can become almost marginal relative to the cost of refurbishment.

A €100,000 hotel can be more expensive than a €5 million hotel

It sounds paradoxical.

It is not.

Consider two hypothetical investments.

Hotel A

Acquisition: €100,000
CAPEX: €4 million
Stabilised EBITDA: €250,000

Hotel B

Acquisition: €5 million
CAPEX: €1 million
Stabilised EBITDA: €900,000

Which one is cheaper?

The answer cannot be determined from the purchase price.

The correct comparison is:

Total Investment Cost / Stabilised EBITDA.

This is where many apparently “cheap” assets stop being cheap.

Residual value can fall close to zero

The present value of a hotel requiring repositioning can be framed as:

Stabilised Value
– CAPEX
– FF&E
– pre-opening
– working capital
– financing costs
– required return
– execution risk
= residual value today

When the capital required to transform the property approaches its stabilised value, the residual value of the real estate can fall dramatically.

That is how buildings comprising thousands of square metres can end up at apparently incomprehensible price levels.

Not necessarily because the bricks and mortar have no value.

But because the capital required to make them productive again absorbs that value.

Viale Guido Baccelli illustrates the phenomenon perfectly

A hotel of approximately 3,298 sqm, spread across several floors, is being offered at a base price of €119,000.

The historical reference value advertised for the asset was more than €1 million.

This does not automatically mean the property has lost the same percentage of its market value.

But it does mean the procedure is searching for the point at which:

price + CAPEX + risk + required return

can meet investor demand.

That is the signal that matters.

Via Le Piane tells the same story

The hospitality complex at Via Le Piane 35 has already returned to market several times.

A previous sale failed to attract a buyer.

The price fell.

Again, the most important fact is not the percentage reduction.

It is the absence of sufficient demand at the previous pricing level.

The market is effectively saying that real estate, on its own, is not enough.

Even larger assets are struggling

The phenomenon is not limited to small or obsolete hotels.

The complex at Viale della Libertà 523, comprising more than 5,000 sqm and a substantial room inventory, had previously been marketed at a higher level.

That sale was unsuccessful.

The new process provides for:

base price €827,000
minimum bid €621,000.

The conclusion remains the same.

The market does not buy square metres.

It buys the future ability to generate cash flow.

But Chianciano is not simply a story of decline

Stopping at a negative interpretation would be a mistake.

The destination still retains:

• national awareness;

• thermal heritage;

• a strategic position between Rome and Florence;

• proximity to Val d’Orcia;

• a substantial hospitality infrastructure;

• hotel management expertise;

• thermal facilities;

• meaningful tourism volumes.

There is therefore a platform on which to build.

But future demand is unlikely to be identical to the demand that built the destination during the twentieth century.

That is where the new strategy must begin.

Less supply, better quality, new demand

Chianciano’s regeneration may require three simultaneous processes.

1. Selective reduction of supply

Not every existing room should necessarily return to the market.

Some buildings will probably need a different use.

2. Repositioning of economically sustainable hotels

The stronger assets should move towards:

• larger rooms;

• better quality;

• wellness;

• medical hospitality;

• longevity;

• food;

• outdoor experiences;

• MICE;

• destination-led experiences.

3. Creation of new demand

This is the most important point.

Upgrading supply is not enough.

The destination must create new reasons to stay in Chianciano.

Without new demand, CAPEX risks producing nothing more than better hotels within the same insufficient market.

From thermal town to wellness and longevity destination

The word “thermal” does not need to disappear.

It needs to be reinterpreted.

International hospitality demand is increasingly moving towards:

• wellness;

• prevention;

• longevity;

• medical wellness;

• healthy ageing;

• nutrition;

• diagnostics;

• rehabilitation;

• mental wellbeing.

Chianciano has the heritage required to build a contemporary proposition around these themes.

But that requires:

concept + capital + product + distribution + international demand.

Refurbishing guestrooms without changing the target market risks creating new hotels for old demand.

MICE can become a second demand engine

Meetings and events can also play an important role.

MICE demand can:

• create room nights during shoulder periods;

• support food and beverage;

• reduce seasonality;

• generate corporate demand;

• make use of existing infrastructure.

But it is unlikely, on its own, to absorb the destination’s historic room stock.

The recovery therefore requires a broader demand platform:

wellness + medical + longevity + leisure + food + outdoor + MICE.

CAPEX must follow the market, not come before it

This is probably the most important principle for investors currently looking at Chianciano.

Do not start with the building.

Start with demand.

First:

1. define the target market;

2. build the concept;

3. determine sustainable ADR and occupancy;

4. estimate GOP and EBITDA;

5. establish stabilised value;

6. calculate maximum sustainable CAPEX.

Only then:

7. determine what can be paid for the real estate.

This is the logic applied in the analyses developed by HotelManagementGroup.it and in the hospitality investment research published on Robertonecci.it.

Doing the opposite — buying because the price appears low and deciding later what to do with the asset — represents one of the greatest risks in hospitality special situations.

The biggest risk is confusing a low price with value

A hotel offered at €67,000 may appear impossible to ignore.

But €67,000 is only the entry ticket.

If the project subsequently requires:

• €2 million in refurbishment;

• €500,000 in FF&E;

• €300,000 in building systems;

• €200,000 in pre-opening and working capital,

the real estate would represent only a marginal share of total investment.

The question would no longer be:

“How is it possible to buy a hotel for €67,000?”

It would become:

“Can this property generate enough EBITDA to remunerate approximately €3 million of capital?”

That is an entirely different question.

And it is the only one that truly matters to an investor.

Chianciano does not need to save every hotel

This may sound provocative.

But it is probably the central point.

A destination does not regenerate itself by artificially preserving all the capacity built in the past.

It regenerates by finding a sustainable equilibrium between:

room supply + product quality + demand + pricing + profitability.

Some hotels may be:

• refurbished;

• consolidated;

• repositioned;

• converted into wellness resorts;

• converted to other uses;

• demolished and rebuilt;

• integrated into larger real estate projects.

A reduction in supply should not automatically be interpreted as failure.

It may represent a normalisation of the market.

For investors, this disruption may create opportunity

When real estate acquisition costs fall dramatically, more capital can theoretically be allocated to:

• CAPEX;

• concept development;

• FF&E;

• technology;

• marketing;

• repositioning.

But the opportunity exists only if the new product can generate stronger revenue and margins than the old one.

Otherwise, the low price of the real estate is not an advantage.

It is simply the reflection of a business model that no longer works.

The real special situation is not one hotel. It is Chianciano Terme

This is probably the most important conclusion.

Viewed individually, Hotel Vittoria, Via dei Colli, Viale Guido Baccelli, Via Le Piane and Viale della Libertà are different real estate transactions.

Viewed together, they tell a much larger story.

They describe the transformation of an entire hotel destination.

The market is progressively separating:

the historic value of the buildings

from

the economic value those buildings can generate today.

And it is in that gap that the special situation emerges.

Chianciano is not interesting because its hotels are cheap.

It is interesting because it allows us to observe, almost in real time, what happens when a destination has to reinvent demand, product and real estate simultaneously.

For an investor, the question should not be:

“Which is the cheapest hotel?”

It should be:

“Which building can be transformed into the product Chianciano will need to sell over the next ten years?”

The future of the destination will therefore not depend on preserving every hotel inherited from the past.

It will depend on its ability to do three things at the same time:

remove economically unsustainable supply, transform the assets worth preserving, and create new demand capable of remunerating the capital required for that transformation.

Only then can low real estate pricing become an opportunity.

Otherwise, it will remain simply the economic symptom of a product the market is no longer willing to pay for.

Chianciano’s real challenge, therefore, is not bringing its old hotels back to life.

It is deciding which hotels should have a future — and what that future should look like.

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Hospitality investment analysis, distressed assets, turnarounds and hotel repositioning

InvestimentiAlberghieri.it analyses hotels and special situations through an integrated assessment of real estate, demand, positioning, CAPEX, business planning, prospective EBITDA and stabilised value.

For confidential enquiries and analysis:

info@investimentialberghieri.it

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CHIANCIANO TERME

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