Under the framework of GREENinMED project, the Official Chamber of Commerce, Industry, Services and Navigation of Spain (CCI Spain), with the support of the rest of the partners, has selected and awarded 10 innovation vouchers to 10 small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). Each Innovation Voucher offered advisory and support services to test/ implement innovative solutions. 

The beneficiary SMEs received consultancy services from July to September in 2021. These companies have received consulting services from technological experts in order to achieve savings in water and energy consumption, through the identification of new solutions that would cover their real eco-innovation needs.

After the completion of the 10 Innovation Vouchers, and the analysis of the results obtained, CCI Spain has drawn the following conclusions about the characteristics of the beneficiary SMEs:

• They belong to the following tourism activities: Three yacht clubs/marinas, Six hotels, one catering  (10 in total).
• They are located in 2 Mediterranean regions in Spain: Valencia (8 companies) and Murcia (2 companies).
• The beneficiary SMEs can be split into 2 groups: the older ones (created between 1950 and 1990), and the newest (created between 2005 and 2012).  We found that most recent facilities/SMEs obtained the highest level of energy and water efficiency.
• Eight (8) SMEs were located in coastal areas and two (2) in urban centres. Experts compared consumption levels of each SME, according to the average in each location in order to determine accurately the savings capacity of each one.
• The beneficiary hotels have between 50 and 100 rooms on average, with the exception of one of the companies, which has 253 rooms. Most of them have a restaurant on their premises and two of them have a swimming pool and/or spa. The yacht clubs have marshes and swimming pools, and one of them has a gym, a spa and a gas station for boats.
• Experts overhauled invoices of the years 2018 and 2019 in order to take pre-pandemic figures, as reference for the actual consumption of the company.
• Due to size diversity and beneficiaries’ needs, technological experts analysed different parts of the facilities. In most of the companies, all the facilities were analysed globally; however, at the request of some companies, the analysis covers only a part of the facility, depending on the demand of the company. Experts distinguished the hotels’ high season in terms of the area (either coastal or urban hotels). The high season for the coastal hotels is from June to August (3 months), and the same is for the nautical clubs.

One of the awarded SMEs stated in the feedback form summarizing the activity: “We can obtain energy savings levels between 5% and 10% thanks to the analysis and the recommendations offered in the Innovation Voucher process”. Regarding water savings, they stated that they also could achieve similar levels of efficiency in water consumption