Projects and Initiatives at a Glance

Here some examples:

Against Food Waste – Savour with a Clear Conscience

The Sentido Asterias Beach Resort in Rhodes, involved in a Futouris project, illustrates how food waste can be avoided. Since 2018, DERTOUR Group has been extending the successful concept developed there, including the corresponding staff training, to other hotels. The target of the DTHR is ambitious: in the future, European hotels are to save 15 percent of annual food waste. In addition to avoiding food waste, the proportion of regional food is to be increased to 70 percent. In the future, holiday guests will be able to enjoy a sustainable range of culinary products with a clean conscience.

Avoid Plastic – Protect the Environment – Holidays without Plastic on the Balearic Islands

Plastic waste pollutes the environment. It pollutes landscapes, beaches and oceans – not a good advertisement for a region. Since the tourism industry is directly affected, it is high time that we combat it and limit the amount of plastic in holiday regions!

Several DERTOUR Hotels & Resorts demonstrate how plastic reduction can look in practice. A good example is the Cala D’Or Gardens Hotel in Mallorca, which also participates in the Futouris project “Plastic-free holidays on the Balearic Islands”.

A number of measures ensured a considerable reduction in plastic waste:

• In gastronomy:
  • elimination of plastic straws (350,000 were still used in the hotel in 2018)
  • Water dispensers with paper and reusable cups in the bar areas (saves 800,000 disposable plastic cups each year)
  • Disposable plastic cutlery, crockery and lunch boxes banned
• In the rooms:
  • refillable dispensers for soap, shampoo and shower gel
  • Dispensing with disposable toothbrush cups and plastic toilet bands
  • Waste bags only in toilet waste bins
• In the hotel:
  • significant reduction in plastic packaging of delivered goods, which accounts for a large proportion of plastic waste in hotels.

Animal welfare

Protection of sea turtles in Turkey – The Turkish Mediterranean coast is a nesting region for three of the seven sea turtle species. On the beach of Titreyengöl near the tourist hotspots of Antalya and Side, there is a nesting beach for the loggerhead turtle and the green sea turtle, which has not yet been officially declared a nesting zone. Between May and September is the nesting and hatching season – of all times when many sun-hungry holidaymakers flock to the Turkish Mediterranean beaches. The region around the 9 km stretch of beach where the turtles nest alone hosts 400,000 tourists a year.

Since May 2023, DER Touristik Foundation has been supporting the project partner DEKAFOK, which has already set up an observation and information centre on Titreyengöl beach. With the support of volunteers, the staff carry out daily beach checks during the nesting and hatching phase to check and document both eggs and baby turtles and then protect them with grids and signs.