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Purpose: Analyse some of the financial ratios to see the impact of the economic crisis on 5-star hotels in Spain.

Design/methodology/approach: The information needed to write this article was taken from the Iberian Balance Sheet Analysis System (SABI), the Hotel Occupancy Survey published periodically by the National Statistics Institute, the IDESCAT and the official websites of the hotels analysed.

Findings and Originality/value: The results obtained show how the financial crisis did not have a direct impact on luxury hotels, but on the contrary, they continue to increase their success thanks to the best continuous strategies. One test is the luxury hotels that were created in Barcelona and Madrid between 2008 and 2011. The work shows that it does not take into account for a hotel chain to have more than one luxury hotel in the same city, since one both of them may end up showing financial losses. It is also found that it is important to determine the number of rooms that the hotel must have in order to avoid construction costs and to have the maximum efficiency.

Research limitations/implications: The study has the problem of not updating the SABI database. In some cases, the information has not been updated since 1990.

Practical implications: The result that luxury hotels can cover the fixed assets coefficient with their equity. At the same time, it supports the importance of making a better forecast of the number of rooms in order to help them have a better financing.

Social implications: It supports the importance of a single luxury hotel in the same hotel chain in the same city and of making good strategic planning in order to improve the results of financial ratios.

Originality/value: The article helps explain how the tourist model in Spain has changed since the beginning of the financial crisis.