One is the City Nation Place Awards, in the Best Citizen Engagement category, and the other is the Responsible Tourism Awards by the World Travel Market, one of the planet’s most important tourism fairs.

The city will have to wait until the first fortnight in November to find out whether its initiative earns an award.

Example of public-private collaboration

The Health Hotels project was a voluntary and altruistic initiative which made more than 2,500 rooms in 16 city hotels available for the health authorities to make use of. The project came about through collaboration between the Barcelona Health Consortium (made up of the City Council and the Government of Catalonia) and the Barcelona Hotel Guild.

It helped take the strain off saturated hospitals and provided care for asymptomatic patients and those with minor symptoms, autonomous patients and others unable to properly isolate at home.

Hotels located near the city’s four main hospitals made their facilities available for medical workers to rest and get support.

Besides the work carried out by primary healthcare teams from the Catalan Health Institute, the Medical Emergency Service, social and medical workers and other healthcare providers, the initiative also involved the collaboration of the Barcelona Fire Service, the City Police, TMB and the city’s Social Services.

List of Health Hotels:

– Hotel Cotton House
– Catalonia Barcelona Plaza
– Praktik Bakery
– Melià Barcelona Sarrià
– Praktik Vinoteca
– Barcelona Princess
– Ilunion Barcelona
– Catalonia Diagonal Centro
– Catalonia Rigoletto
– Alimara Barcelona Hotel
– Room Mate Emma
– Pullman Barcelona Skipper
– Ilunion Bel Art
– Generator Barcelona
– Tres Torres Atiram Hotels
– Hotel Sagrada Família​