Bologna edges ahead of Sicily on higher occupancy (30% vs 24%), stronger RevPAR (£25 vs £7).
Head-to-head metrics
| Bologna | Sicily | |
|---|---|---|
| Median occupancy | 30% | 24% |
| Median daily rate | £125 | £69 |
| Median RevPAR | £25 | £7 |
| Active listings | 3,544 | 29,746 |
| YoY occupancy | +10.3 pts | — |
| YoY daily rate | +15.7% | — |
| Regulation risk | — | — |
| Annual night cap | None | None |
| License required | No | No |
Full analysis: Bologna vs Sicily
On the money side of this comparison — what a listing actually earns against the nights it has available — Bologna finishes clearly ahead of Sicily. Revenue per available night — rate and occupancy combined, the figure that actually reaches an owner — is 253.5% higher in Bologna: £25 against £7. Bologna commands 81.5% more per night, £125 against £69. Those gaps are wide enough to survive a normal year's variance.
Bologna takes both halves of the yield equation, which is less common than it sounds. It charges more per night — £125 against £69 — and still fills more of the year, 30% against 24%. A market that leads on price and utilisation at once is normally one where demand has outrun supply, rather than one where hosts are discounting to keep the calendar busy. RevPAR reflects the double advantage at £25 against £7.
That verdict needs a caveat, because Sicily is not simply the weaker market of the two. Sicily's calendar is the flatter of the two — 14.3 points between its best and worst month against 39.8 in Bologna — which makes debt service easier to underwrite. Sicily is the deeper market at 29,746 active listings against 3,544, which usually means better comparables going in and a wider buyer pool coming out. If your model leans on that dimension, the ordering above can reasonably flip.
Neither Bologna nor Sicily currently has a verified short-term rental regulation record in our register, so the comparison above is a yield comparison only. Regulation is the single largest source of downside in this asset class — an unverified market is an unpriced risk, not an absent one.
The two calendars also behave differently. Bologna peaks in September at 72.3% and bottoms in December at 32.5%; Sicily runs from 43.2% in August down to 28.9% in November. Sicily is the steadier of the two at 14.3 points peak-to-trough against 39.8 — easier to underwrite against a mortgage — while Bologna concentrates its return into a shorter window and rewards operators who price the peak aggressively instead of holding a flat rate all year.
Who each suits, then. Bologna suits buyers who want a conventional, lightly regulated entry. Sicily answers to the same regulatory profile, so the split between them is operational rather than legal. Every figure above comes from the same Inside Airbnb snapshot pipeline on both sides, dated 2025-09, filtered to listings with at least one booking in the last twelve months. Occupancy medians are drawn from 2,043 active Bologna listings and 23,804 in Sicily.
Frequently asked questions
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