In a B-Travel hall that was already experiencing a good influx of public at mid-morning on the day of its inauguration, the Minister of Business and Tourism of the Generalitat of Catalonia, Roger Torrent, announced this Friday a line of subsidies worth 12, 7 million euros for tourist accommodation to improve their water management.
The aid, announced during a severe drought situation in Catalonia, will serve to promote water saving and reuse projects in businesses such as hotels. For example, they can be used for recovery systems, advanced laundry methods that consume less, efficiency in irrigation, savings and efficiency in swimming pools, elimination of leaks or digital systems to monitor consumption.
Torrent specified that the aid "does not contemplate portable desalination plants", one of the recent demands from the tourism sector. "The subsidies focus on saving and reusing, not on generating water," he said. However, the councilor recalled that the Government is working on a modification of the drought plan so that tourism but also the rest of the sectors can promote this type of initiatives.
The subsidies from your department are retroactive from January 2023. Therefore, tourist establishments that have already promoted projects to improve water management previously can also benefit. The maximum aid per project is 300,000 euros and there is no established minimum to adapt to the diversity of the sector. "They must be structural measures, thinking about the future and not only about the current drought situation," described the councilor.
"The Government wants to accompany and lead the green transformation of tourism," Torrent proclaimed. "The sector is already aware of the seriousness of the drought situation," concluded the Minister of Business and Work.
