How many nights does a luxury villa actually rent?

This is the question that decides whether a villa is a business or a beautiful liability, and it is the question every occupancy percentage is designed to dodge. Here is the honest answer, market by market: the number of nights a luxury villa actually sells in a year.

#	Destination	Nights sold a year
1	Bali	220
2	Phuket	200
3	Koh Samui	200
4	Miami	170
5	Dubai	170
6	Mauritius	165
7	Maui	160
8	Big Island	150
9	Algarve	150
10	Sri Lanka	150
11	St Barts	145
12	Barbados	145

High-season plus low-season nights sold in a year. Not occupancy. The two are not the same. Where we hold too few observations to be honest, we publish nothing, so some famous names are absent by choice.

The occupancy illusion

A fifty percent occupancy rate reads as half full and calm. Convert it and it claims one hundred and eighty-two sold nights. Almost no top-end villa in a seasonal market comes close. Saint-Tropez sells around fifty-five. The percentage was never wrong by accident. A rate makes a seasonal market look like a year-round one, which flatters the estimate and misleads the owner.

Two markets, same rate, opposite outcomes

Take two villas at a similar nightly rate. One is in the Mediterranean and works one intense summer. The other is in the Caribbean and works most of the year. Same rate, and the second earns two to three times as much, entirely on nights sold. This single variable, not the nightly price, is what separates the markets on the income ranking.

What it means for you

When anyone quotes you a rental estimate, ask the only question that matters: how many nights did you assume, and what proof do you have for it? If the answer is a percentage, halve it in your head. Our own estimate is built on nights, and it is free to run in three questions.

Published 15/07/2026. Figures generated from our live benchmark data and updated on recalibration.