He says: “One trend which is now gaining traction is to focus on people with special needs and accessibility. All these figures are part of the classification system, so hotels have to provide access in public areas for the physically challenged, the elevators have to have voice information about the level in Arabic and English, elevators have to have Braille language, and when it comes to the mentally challenged, the staff should be trained in handling people with special needs.” Bäuerle also adds that he is currently trying to kickstart talks with an institution to provide training to Qatar’s hotel industry related to how to treat people with special needs.

There’s certainly a lot on Bäuerle’s plate, and he says that his aim is to create more awareness related to sustainability. “A lot of people say that if you’re going green, it costs a lot of money. Whereas I’m try to show them that in the initial stage it may cost some money, but you will get a return of investment with savings,” he says.

Bäuerle adds: “Especially right now in the current economic situation where people are trying to reduce operational costs… if they would have implemented environmental management systems earlier, they would already be in a stage where they could start saving. Currently it’s difficult to approach them because they are not spending anything.”

Story continues below
Advertisement

And Bäuerle’s aim with the GHIG is to have more members with mandatory practices associated with the membership.

“Currently we meet every two months and we share best practice. My aim is to have the hotels more aligned — let’s collect energy or water figures, let’s create our own benchmark, let’s create our own awards to say which ones are the best performing when it comes to environment issues. Let’s participate in carbon footprint initiatives,” he says.

On that note, Bäuerle has just reached out to International Tourism Partnership, which has created an online CO2 footprint tool where people can find out how much CO2 a hotel is producing. Qatar currently has no data associated with it, something that Bäuerle is looking to change.

His long-term goal is to have more hotels Green Key-certified in Qatar. “It’s set at 20 hotels in the next three years but my personal goal is for it to be 20 hotels in the next year. It helps the QTA, it helps the hotels, and helps the country in general to be more sustainable. That is the vision of QTA, that Qatar will be a sustainable tourism destination.”

Bäuerle concludes: “That’s what sustainability is about — to think about the future and not just today and tomorrow.”