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HOTREC: European Hospitality Industry Guidelines to Improve
Energy Efficiency
As globalization and digitalization drive global change, travel and tourism now
represents the unifying power of a more connected, informed and outward-
looking world. More than 1.3 billion people per year travelling abroad have left
almost nowhere in the world untouched by tourism. Europe, the world’s leading
region in innovation, connectivity and technological advances, is also the world’s
largest tourism market, with 8% growth in international tourist arrivals in 2017.
As the world population continues to grow, energy use is one of the key areas
to address if we want to ensure truly sustainable economic growth as we move
towards the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development and its 17 Goals. Of these, Sustainable Development
Goal 7 aims to ensure universal access to clean and affordable electricity. All economic sectors should contribute
to efforts to achieve it.
Like any sector and almost any human activity, tourism has an impact on energy use. But as the world’s third-
largest export category, tourism has great responsibility and potential for positive change. Tourism can make a
meaningful difference to protection of natural resources and must play its part in wider sustainable development
planning. This means tourism businesses, policymakers and stakeholders encouraging clean energy – and at
the same time taking real action to manage resources more sustainably.
In an effort to reduce buildings’ energy consumption from current levels of around 40% of total energy consumed
in Europe, ‘nearly-Zero Energy Buildings’ regulations have been introduced for all EU Member States to meet
by 2020. To assist hospitality businesses to take action, I commend Hotels, Restaurants & Cafés in Europe
(HOTREC) for this outline of how to increase energy efficiency and more sustainable resource use. It builds on
Nearly Zero-Energy Hotels (neZEH), an online toolkit released in 2016 for the European hospitality segment to
evaluate energy performance and identify options for energy efficiency.
UNWTO was a partner in neZEH and has also collaborated with HOTREC. HOTREC is a signatory of the
UNWTO Global Code of Ethics, was an official partner of the 2017 International Year of Sustainable Tourism for
Development developing guidelines to help the hospitality sector reduce food waste, and has recently applied to
be a partner of the One Planet - Sustainable Tourism Programme, for which UNWTO is the lead agency.
We look forward to continuing working together to seize opportunities that the digital transformation provides to
enhance sustainability and energy efficiency. I trust that these guidelines can inspire the hospitality segment in
Europe to increase quality, efficiency, sustainability and competitiveness.
Zurab Pololikashvili
Secretary-General, World Tourism Organization (UNWTO)
FOREWORD BY
MR. ZURAB POLOLIKASHVILI,
SECRETARY GENERAL OF UNWTO
I commend Hotels,
Restaurants & Cafés
in Europe (HOTREC)
for this outline of how
to increase energy
efficiency and more
sustainable resource
use.
Making tourism more resource efficient: guidance and solutions to raise energy efficiency in the european hospitality industry
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