Workshop with hotel chains: assessment of risks derived from the impacts and dependencies of nature

Nature, as a tourist attraction, is undoubtedly a key asset for the competitiveness of the hotel sector. For this reason, preserving and recovering the environmental values of the tourist area has become a powerful business argument for investing in positive actions for nature.

In this sense, the Biodiversity Foundation of the Ministry for the Ecological Transition and the Demographic Challenge has launched the project “Nature, an asset for the tourism sector in Spain“, which aims to support the sector in the identification of opportunities and strategies that promote the sustainable use and conservation of natural values in tourist products and destinations.

Developed within the framework of the “Changing Lifestyles to Recover Nature” programme, contemplated in the Recovery, Transformation and Resilience Plan (RTRP) financed by the European Union’s NextGeneration funds, this project has the participation of hotel chains to agree on a sectoral roadmap to promote a tourism model in favour of nature.

The work has begun with the identification of the main risks derived from the impacts and dependencies of nature related to hotel activity. To this end, on 28 April, we held a workshop in which, together with ILUNION Hotels, Iberostar, Paradores and RIU, we discussed which sector-specific operations to include in the analysis, which impacts and dependencies of nature are most critical and which risk assessment metrics to apply.

The results of the analysis will be published in the coming weeks, allowing both the hotel sector and investors and financial institutions to have arguments to make decisions in favor of nature.