The Barcelona Hotel Guild has launched various initiatives for its members to contribute to combating the drought. It has therefore distributed additional awareness materials among hotel establishments, targeted at their guests, to promote sustainable water consumption.
This project complements the different awareness-raising actions that hotels are already carrying out, and forms part of the campaign “STOP.Water is a scarce commodity, help us to preserve it" which the guild is conducting in collaboration with the Catalan Government and Barcelona City Council.
The Hotel Guild has distributed up to 55,000 panels to be put up in hotel rooms and common areas, along with their corresponding digital versions, displaying specific data on water consumption during daily bathroom activities and recommending actions to achieve effective water savings.
Certification and drought
Meanwhile, it is worth remembering a significant number of hotels in Barcelona have the Biosphere seal, which guarantees the sustainability of their activities. This implies a commitment to a minimum of three annual improvement actions.
Examples include recycling greywater for irrigation in parks and gardens, using artificial turf or installing water-saving systems and daily monitoring to limit water consumption, as well as including cooling towers with closed-loop secondary circuits and adapting pools with water recirculation systems.
Some notable actions in the context of the current drought are those carried out, for example, by the Hotel Alimara, which has obtained the new Biosphere seal after replacing natural vegetation with an artificial version. Or the Hilton Diagonal Barcelona, also certified after introducing salt water instead of chlorinated water in its swimming pool.
Others, such as the Hostel St. Christopher's Inn Barcelona, have been recognised with the Biosphere seal for their efforts to recover and purify greywater, mainly from showers and sinks, in order to re-use it for cleaning and flushing toilets.
