“We cannot send the world the image of hotels with empty pools.” Jordi Clos, president of the Barcelona Hotels Guild, has returned to the fore to criticize the prohibition on hotels being able to open their swimming pools (unless it is with seawater) because the majority of hotels are not technically prepared for it.
He has demanded “the administration also look for solutions” and they have put one on the table: go buy water from France.
With the foot changed. In the middle of one of the most intense droughts in recent decades, Catalonia declared the drought emergency phase for more than 200 municipalities and 6 million people in the provinces of Barcelona and Girona. This phase has many measures: from forcing sports facilities to close showers to reducing river flows to a minimum.
The controversy of the moment focuses on the pools because the Hotel Guild is aware that the majority of establishments have not made the necessary changes to fill the pools with salt water and fears the impact on tourism that the image of the pools may have. empty. It is estimated that a family hotel with a relatively small pool would need to invest between 15,000 and 20,000 euros in installation, maintenance and replacement of salt water.
In search of lost water. Hence, as explained by La Vanguardia, the idea of buying water on the other side of the border and taking it to the hotels with vats and tanker trucks has been gaining weight. Rumors and speculation even speak of hotel complexes closing agreements for the coming months.
There’s just one small problem: it’s illegal.
Roads full of tanker trucks. In a recent interview on TV3, Samuel Reyes (president of the Catalan Water Agency) explained that it is not “a last minute measure.” The measure has been in the Special Drought Plan since November 2022 and the text is crystal clear. “It doesn’t matter if it comes from France, Bilbao or Japan, if it’s not sea water, you can’t fill the pool.”
According to Reyes, it is not only that “it would not make any sense for water not to be used for domestic activities, such as cooking or showering”; but that, if the purchase of water for these purposes was allowed, “we would have tanker trucks circulating throughout Catalonia and it would be a situation impossible to control.”
Meanwhile, the pressure continues to build. Because it is not only an international problem, it is also a regional problem. Although hoteliers on the Costa Dorada also fear the “reputational damage” that hotel problems in Barcelona may cause, the truth is that they do not have the same problems. Tarragona, depending on the Ebro basin, is not affected by the emergency and, if everything continues like this, its hotels will be able to open normally.
Will we see water smuggling on the border this summer? That is beginning to be the big question as the employers find themselves unable to get the Generalitat to finance the conversion of the swimming pools.
