Barcelona leads European rankings with most sustainable tourism accommodation

Barcelona and the 12 counties that make up its wider province have ranked number one in Europe for most tourist accommodation with sustainable certification in the European Union.

This index indicates the number of accommodations per destination that have managed to demonstrate sustainable practices, and publicly recognizes them with an international certificate.

The province of Barcelona, with 283 sustainable tourism options available, comes first in the list far ahead of the 134 offered by Stockholm, the 95 of Amsterdam, the 83 of the Greek island of Kalymnos, and the 74 of Vienna.

The city council of the Catalan capital points out that the Barcelona region has been working for "years" to build a tourist community "respectful of the environment, culture and the social and economic return."

This program is promoted by the councils of both the province and city of the Catalan capital, with the support of the Chamber of Commerce and the tourism board.

The local government also highlighted that nearly a thousand companies and tourist entities had biosphere accreditation prior to the creation of the new EU indicator, which is included in the periodic publication 'EU Tourism Dashboard'.

The biosphere initiative seeks to make the tourism model of the province "increasingly responsible and respectful of the environment and society." 

The Environmental Labels and Schemes indicator values that sustainability plans are aligned with the sustainable development goals and the 169 United Nations indicators already taken into account by the biosphere system. This index, which will be updated annually, seeks to monitor progress towards a lower environmental impact, greater digitization and greater socio-economic resilience.