As Marija Crnjak/Poslovni Dnevnik writes, it isn’t just the level of luxury that the heritage Brtonigla San Rocco hotel is raising, it’s also making sure it is ticking the increasingly important box of sustainability by introducing green technologies and digital solutions.
To be more specific, the Brtonigla San Rocco hotel is one of the many small hotels that responded to the recently completed and published tender for money from the National Recovery and Resilience Programme (Croatian: NPOO). This was confirmed by Tullio Fernetich, the owner of this exclusive tourist facility in beautiful Istria, who believes that his project meets all the criteria from the tender.
Business adjustments
“Owing to its specific criteria, this tender fully coincided with our previous way of working as well as the idea for renovation that will bring us more added value through green and digital solutions. After twenty whole years on the market, it’s now time to additionally try to adapt to today’s business conditions and modern market requirements, as well as to mitigate the impact of current not so favourable circumstances related to energy prices. Our project includes the introduction of sustainable solutions across all segments of business while raising our standards that will enable us to generate higher incomes and extend the tourist season,” Fernetich explained.
The Brtonigla San Rocco hotel project is worth 1.5 million euros in total and doesn’t envisage the expansion of the existing capacity of fourteen rooms, instead, it’s aiming for renovation and the introduction of new technologies. It includes the replacement of all appliances that consume too much energy in the hotel and restaurant, a new heating and cooling system with solar panels and heating pumps, the introduction of smart room systems and the elimination of fossil fuels.
The works will start after this summer season ends and everything should be finished by the time the 2024 summer season rolls around. The owner of the hotel employs around 25 people throughout the year, and the San Rocco hotel is one of the thirteen complexes from within the Association of Small Family Hotels (OMH) that holds the Eco green certificate that the association introduced about a year ago.
Family and small hotels are most often located in less developed destinations, and as many as a quarter of them are in the continental part of Croatia. Very often, they’re open throughout the entire year, and their offer emphasises authentic, local and healthy products, and preserves heritage and the entire space as a resource.
Sime Klaric, the president of OMH, revealed that fifteen more hotels are about to be certified, and he is convinced that this number will increase dramatically after the implementation of numerous investment projects from the NPOO.
“We don’t have the exact figures on how many small hotels applied for the tender, but if we know that the vast majority of applicants are small and medium-sized companies, it’s precisely this segment of tourism that is traditionally oriented towards green business. There’s already a lot of investment going on, and all those who failed to prepare projects for this tender will have the opportunity to do so with the new financial instruments that are set to follow,” explained Klaric.
The next step of the association is towards the Energy Efficiency Fund with the aim of introducing a special favourable line for the introduction of alternative energy sources. These are investments whose amounts are even lower than those foreseen in the NPOO, and the need for such adjustments in the sector is great, as they guarantee great savings in the future.
According to Klaric, although the coming season will bring a lot of optimism with it, they’re finally returning to and even exceeding the numbers from before the global coronavirus pandemic, and behind these hotels lie a few very lean years indeed.
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