How much does the sun cost? Alicante the best value for money when looking at cost per sun ray!

Alicante is the best value for money when looking to catch some rays this May, costing only £6.15 per hour of sunshine; roughly the same amount as a large glass of wine. By comparing the hours of sunshine per day with the average cost for a night's hotel room stay, the Hotels.com Sunshine Price Index (SPI) determines which holiday hotspots in Europe will provide the best chance of bronzing for your buck.

The SPI combines the average room rates per night taken from the most recent Hotels.com™ Hotel Price Index™ (HPI®); a regular report detailing actual prices paid by travellers in 2014 compared to the previous year and dividing this by the number of hours of sun per day taken from the Weather Service* from May 2014.

Coming in joint second place in the SPI, with a cost of £7.09 per hour, was Lisbon, while Warsaw featured in third place with £7.20 – the cost of two pints of lager in a London pub. Rounding off the top five are Vilnius and Madrid costing £7.92 and £8.23 per hour in the sun respectively.

Surprisingly, popular beach destinations like Barcelona and Mallorca are found to be pricier than other cities – even though they have high amounts of sun per day. The Spanish cities feature at 8^th and 14^th place respectively, with the likes of Bucharest and Budapest topping them in the Index.

The UK came in penultimate position – despite May forecasted to be an extremely hot month, as London was the second most expensive destination to visit, offering only 5.8 hours of sunshine per day, equating to £21.89 per hour of sun. This high price was only beaten by Swiss city, Geneva, costing £23 per hour –more expensive than three bottles of sun cream!

Carolina Annand of the Hotels.com brand said: "We know how important weather is when choosing a holiday destination, and this new Index will allow travellers seeking sun the opportunity to choose the right location to get the most rays this summer. From these results it's clear Alicante, Lisbon and Warsaw are the cities to consider if you're looking to get more tan for under a tenner!"