Water Use and Its Perception in the Hotel Industry in the Iberian Peninsula

Abstract

Tourism industry is one of the fastest growing in recent years, before the pandemic, and is a well-known industry with excessive consumption of water. Climate change together with the abusive use of water resources change the hydrological cycle, thus causing water supply problems. Consequently, tourism companies must undertake actions to change the direction based on a more structured knowledge and vision.This work is based on the study of water consumption in the various activities of tourist accommodations in the Iberian Peninsula. It aims to compare the perception of their consumption against the published reference values, as well as to apply measures to reduce water consumption.The applied methodology is based on an initial bibliographic research of the state of the art, reference values for consumption, and the influencing factors in tourist accommodation. Following, the perception of consumption is assessed through an online survey targeting Portuguese and Spanish hoteliers. The survey was conducted in the first months of 2020 and 174 responses were obtained, 101 from Spain and 73 from Portugal.The results show that the surveyed hoteliers do not have the perception of water consumption, since in general they do not make measurements, are unaware of the consumption of each sector within the hotel and mostly refer to consumption below the reference values. Regarding the measures that have already been implemented to reduce water consumption, they represent measures of lower cost and easier application and that do not require major changes.