The Riu chain buys the historic Hotel Sofia of Barcelona

BarcelonaThe Mallorcan hotel chain Riu Hotels & Resorts has acquired the historic Hotel Sofia in Barcelona – the former Princesa Sofia –, an establishment with 465 rooms distributed over 19 floors. The new owner, who with this operation will land in the hotel market of the Catalan capital, will begin managing it on April 1, 2027.

The company announced this Friday the acquisition of the establishment from its previous owners, Blasson Property Investments and BNP Paribas Asset Management Alts, in a transaction the amount of which has not been disclosed. The hotel is located on Avinguda Joan XXIII, in a block on Avinguda Diagonal, next to Camp Nou and the CaixaBank headquarters, in the Barcelona district of Les Corts-Pedralbes.

The establishment has one of the largest meeting and event centers in Barcelona and, starting in April 2027, will be incorporated into the Riu Plaza line of urban hotels. With this acquisition, the Mallorcan company will reach 14 establishments in this division, with which it is already present in cities such as London, New York, and Chicago.

Riu's CEO, Luis Riu, has highlighted that the purchase means achieving a goal that the company had been pursuing for more than a decade. "With this hotel, we fulfill a historic goal, since we had been looking for the right opportunity to invest in the city of Barcelona for more than a decade, which has been a strategic priority for us since we launched our Riu Plaza line in 2010," he stated.

Riu has pointed out that the company faces this project with the same enthusiasm and professional dedication that it dedicated to the Hotel Riu Plaza in Madrid, which he defined as the chain's best-known asset. Riu Hotels & Resorts has 101 hotels in 22 countries that in 2025 received 6.8 million guests and where a total of 38,955 employees worked.