Best Environmental Practices (BEP) for the Hotel Industry

Tourism is one of the major activities of the Moroccan economy. It has considerably increased during the last decade representing in 2010 about 8% of the Gross Domestic Product (second biggest contributor), providing thousands jobs (second biggest creator of jobs), and the top foreign exchange earner. It is important that this increase is accompanied by a strategic vision aiming to implement along the whole tourist value chain a sustainable approach, enhancing the development of the tourism industry and insuring its viability.

With its partners from the private sector, the Moroccan Department of Tourism has thus designed, mechanisms targeting the tourist operators in general, and hotels in particular. Indeed, hotels are at the heart of the tourism industry and have an essential role to play in promoting sustainability.

In this respect, one of the very first mechanisms developed by the Moroccan Department of Tourism jointly with the National Hotel Federation and Sustainable Business Associates (sba, Switzerland) concerns the promotion and the implementation of Best Environmental Practices (BEP) by the hotel industry. Thus, targeted trainings, technical support and practical tools are developed and made available as part of this project.

Local capacity building

A first Train-the-Trainers session was organised in October 2008 in order to build the capacity of targeted experts in the area of environment management in hotels. Subsequently, environmental experts, professionals of the hotel industry, and representatives of the tourism delegations who participated in the launch of the project constituted the National Experts for Sustainable Tourism (NEST) network. NEST members became national ambassadors to promote BEP through awareness raising campaigns in the most prominent tourist destination of the country (Agadir, Ouarzazate, El Jadida, Fez, Marrakech, Meknes, Rabat, Tangiers, Tetouan). Additionally, NEST members moderated several technical seminars targeting hotel managers and their technical staff and providing them the practical tools to implement BEP in their own hotels.

Enhancing best environmental practices

Sustainability in hotels involves the implementation of best environmental practices, without reconsidering the client's comfort. The corner stone of this project is the BEP guide published by sba that contains systematic tools and checklists that allow hotel responsible to better manage their environmental impacts by:

• Rationalizing the usage of raw material among which water and energy
• Reducing the quantity of waste and improve waste management
• Adopting a more ecological procurement policy and improving logistics
• Improving the quality of the internal environment of the hotel

Perspectives

After 2 years of implementing the BEP, approximately 30 hotels have undertaken concrete actions. Beside its profitability, BEP has also very positive impact on resources. For instance, a 4-star hotel in Fez saved 700 m3/month of water and 30'000 kWh/month.

After having implemented BEP, hotels are now considering ecologic labeling and certification that represent a non-negligible competitive advantage to improve their image among stakeholders and clients.

Moreover, the BEP guide is meant to be reused regularly (i.e. annually) by hotel responsible to conduct their yearly diagnosis and decide for additional corrective measures. Hotels can thus set their own benchmarking, comparing their performances to the standard hotel benchmarks or even to their performance during the previous years. BEP opens the door for hotel managers to become pro-active vis-à-vis eco-efficiency and cleaner production and involving clients in a participatory approach towards sustainability.

Finally, the BEP project is in line with the new Moroccan tourist strategy, Vision 2020, that sets sustainable tourism as a fundament for the new decade and that seeks to create a unique destination that is a source of wealth for the country and that preserves cultural heritage as well as its natural environment.

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Diploma of advanced studies en stratégie environnementale et enjeux économiques