Rome edges ahead of Sicily on higher occupancy (30% vs 24%), stronger RevPAR (£25 vs £7).
Head-to-head metrics
| Rome | Sicily | |
|---|---|---|
| Median occupancy | 30% | 24% |
| Median daily rate | £110 | £69 |
| Median RevPAR | £25 | £7 |
| Active listings | 27,668 | 29,746 |
| YoY occupancy | +5.3 pts | — |
| YoY daily rate | -7.9% | — |
| Regulation risk | medium | — |
| Annual night cap | None | None |
| License required | No | No |
Full analysis: Rome vs Sicily
On the money side of this comparison — what a listing actually earns against the nights it has available — Rome finishes decisively ahead of Sicily. Revenue per available night — rate and occupancy combined, the figure that actually reaches an owner — is 256% higher in Rome: £25 against £7. Rome commands 59.3% more per night, £110 against £69. That is not a rounding difference, and it compounds over a hold period.
Rome takes both halves of the yield equation, which is less common than it sounds. It charges more per night — £110 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 34.7 in Rome — which makes debt service easier to underwrite. Sicily sits at the cheaper end at £69 a night against £110, which lowers the bar for filling shoulder-season dates and usually tracks a lower purchase price too. If your model leans on that dimension, the ordering above can reasonably flip.
We hold a verified regulation record for only one side of this pairing. Rome applies no annual night cap and requires registration but no licence, on a medium risk rating. Sicily should be read as unverified rather than unregulated: check the local authority's own register before you underwrite anything there.
The two calendars also behave differently. Rome peaks in September at 62.9% and bottoms in December at 28.2%; 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 34.7 — easier to underwrite against a mortgage — while Rome 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. Rome 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 15,125 active Rome listings and 23,804 in Sicily.
Frequently asked questions
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