Commitment and Social Responsibility

SOCIAL RESPONSIBILITY – CORPORATE STATEMENT

The Gran Hotel Peñíscola **** conceives corporate social responsibility as part of its strategy and key factor for the development of its activities in a sustainable way, based on a management of business in a way that preserves the environment, satisfying the present needs of service without compromising those of future generations, and considering at all times as a pillar of the proper functioning of the organization, the relationship with the different interest groups that make up our tourism environment: our Human Capital, our customers and suppliers, other external stakeholders (social and tourism entities and NGOs) and society in general.

1. Customers

Satisfying the needs and expectations of customers in an optimal, reliable and competitive way and promoting lasting business relationships, based on a permanent attitude of service, trust and value contribution, complying with the most demanding standards of business ethics, ranging from respect for intellectual property to fair competition, or transparency in business. A clear example of this policy is the recognition obtained with the SICTED quality seal “Tourist Quality in Destination“.

Maintaining a two-way communication channel, using new technologies, publicizing the activities and news of the organization, and collecting the needs and requirements of our customers.

Establishing requirements to our services that include functional and performance, legal and regulatory requirements, quality requirements, those established by the client, those related to food safety, as well as any other essential for the final consumer and society.

2. Employees

Promoting people management policies, carrying out activities to improve training, awareness and professional competence, establishing, among others, programs for continuous training, better conditions for personal and professional development in the workplace, ensuring their health and well-being, and promoting communication, tolerance, equality and integration among the staff that make up the Gran Hotel Peñíscola.

Likewise, reaching agreements with private entities and our own suppliers, in order to offer our employees (and their dependent direct relatives) the widest possible range of basic necessities, consumption, and / or leisure products, with special reduced prices, and thus improve their quality of life by being able to reach more products while maintaining the same global expenditure, especially at times like this when the current socio-economic situation does not allow for a wage increase.

Integration into the workforce, beyond the legal obligation, of people with disabilities in those jobs in which they can be supervised by a superior who meets their needs, and permanently contributes to their professional growth and total insertion in the world of work.

3.- Inter-business Relations and Promotion of the Territory

In order to reduce the carbon footprint left by our activity, but at the same time, the need to show the gastronomic richness of our territory, they led us to create in 2008 our own identification in our services of restoration of the local product, which over the years, ended up being the prelude to our undoubted adhesion to two projects of the tourist and economic administrations of local development; who promoted respectively, at the level of the Provincial Council, and Generalitat Valenciana, the brands Castellón Ruta de Sabor and L’ Exquisit Mediterrani,

4. Society

• There are multiple actions we have been incorporated over the last few years as usual to our daily work with administrative or volunteer entities of the weakest or most disadvantaged social sectors
• We participate annually in the Awareness and Fundraising Campaigns in the Hospitality Sector together with ACCION contra EL HAMBRE: “Restaurants against Hunger” and “Operation Coffee”: Management of Donations from our Clients + own company contribution, deducting and ceding to this NGO a part of the profits of the products promoted within each campaign.
• We collaborate with the Ronald McDonald Houses of VALENCIA and MALAGA, through the periodic sponsorship of special events and product assignment for raffles.
• We collaborate with DEBRA Spain “Piel de Mariposa”, through the annual sponsorship of its Charity Gala through the transfer of product for raffles, and sporadic direct contributions. We have also collaborated on several occasions as patrons of children’s publications aimed at raising funds for the entity, such as the book “INESperadamente”.
• We collaborate with PROYDE La Salle through an agreement that serves as a showcase and promotes the fair trade for which they bet from this entity, having merchandise and raw materials from developing countries available to our customers in our showcases.
• We collaborate with CARITAS for those who put at their disposal our establishment for the sale of the manual work carried out by their volunteers, once a week, and whose donations obtained contribute to alleviate the dramatic situation of dozens of families in our environment.
• We collaborate with Red NODUS of the DIAGRAMA Foundation through an agreement that contributes to promoting the social welfare and integral development of vulnerable or difficult people who need support, advice, training and employment, especially young people at risk of exclusion, people with disabilities and women victims of gender violence.
• We collaborate with CRUZ ROJA, assuming students in practices in our establishment from the courses of labor reintegration that they carry out in the area of Maestrazgo and Peñíscola Specifically. Likewise, we collaborate with its annual Gold Draw, being an official point of sale of tickets.
• We collaborate with the TELEFONO de la ESPERANZA, eponosrizando several of the acts and events organized by the entity, in order to raise awareness among the population about the existence of this advice tool.
• We collaborate with the research against CANCER through the CANDELA BRACELETS project, through the sale of solidarity bracelets, whose income is destined exclusively to the oncological area of the SJD Barcelona Children’s Hospital.
• We collaborate with the TRANSFUSION CENTER of the Generalitat Valenciana promoting and sponsoring all blood donation actions that are carried out in our most direct environment.
• We sponsor some Charity Events organized by third parties, providing free accommodation to the organizers so that they can bring famous people participants, who make the event more attractive. For example, the Celebrity Football Charity Matches to raise funds for research against childhood cancer by the Sant Joan de Deu Children’s Hospital Foundation in Barcelona, and in whose organization and dissemination our neighbor Maribel (Masterchef) Gil has been especially involved.
• Realization once a week of awareness workshops and crafts in the Funny-Club of the Hotel, then putting the solidarity works made “for sale” in a stand. The funds obtained each week are delivered on a rotating basis to local NGOs.
• Participating with the Social Welfare Areas of the populations of our environment in training programs aimed at the social and labor insertion of young people. ceding the use of our facilities for the development of a part of the activities programmed within the special projects, such as “Generacció” of the City Council of Benicarló
• Our social commitment reaches the most disadvantaged communities through specific social programs such as:
  • The collaboration with the Social Dining Room of Benicarló, punctually allocating our prepared food surpluses,
  • The creation of an internal area within the Hotel of personalized and special attention to all our clients affected by some type of severe food intolerance (celiacs, allergic to milk or egg and its derivatives, and other allergentic pathologies.
  • The development of various collaboration agreements with associations of the disabled, to work together on the necessary adaptations for their access, use and enjoyment without any impediment of our facilities. Subsequently, we have worked on the dissemination of the objectives achieved.

5. Environment

• Our commitment to the natural environment and the environment that surrounds the Gran Hotel Peñíscola and as such, is our desire to continue advancing in reducing the environmental impact that our activity may generate by performing:
• Responsible water management (use of fluxors instead of cisterns in WCs and Urinals; irrigation with recovered natural water, treatment, filtering and recycling of water in our aquatic facilities; use of water disinfectant agents that are not aggressive to the environment and health, etc.),
• Optimizing the use of energy resources, including changes of equipment for new generation and more energy efficient ones.
• Using cleaning products, disinfection or refrigerants that are more ecological and not harmful to the Environment. Using new communication technologies (Whatsapp or Telegram groups, and specific APPs) to eliminate spending on paper derivatives and accessories, reducing, reusing and recycling paper until its useful life is over.
• Recycling products and materials (paper, cardboard, glass, plastic containers, batteries, FC lighting tubes, cooking oils and fats; etc.), and responsibly managing the waste generated, and using in our food production processes the largest amount of durable and therefore non-disposable packaging.
• Reduction of single-use plastic packaging (until its total mandatory) and replacement of disposable plastics with plant materials and easily biodegradable.

6. Business management

Our attitude in this sense is to give an approach to our activity that responds to the challenge of responsible economic sustainability, without unnecessary risks, guiding the technological solutions at our disposal to maintain a lasting and consolidated development through the provision of differentiated services that contribute to economic progress, from an ethical and responsible conduct required of all employees of the Gran Hotel Peñíscola, as well as in all possible commercial relationships that are established with third parties.

Therefore, in November 2021 we took the firm step of consolidating our business strategy and obtained the official recognition of our adherence to the Code of Ethics of Tourism in the Valencian Community, an adaptation of the Global Code of Ethics for Tourism made from the features of our culture and identity, organized from the guiding principles of sustainable tourism, able to account for its economic, social and environmental impacts, and in accordance with the Sustainable Development Goals. These values and commitments are accompanied by a System of Ethics and Compliance, an expression of the demands for participation of all Valencian tourism agents in the effectiveness and exemplarity of the values and behaviors proposed here. Doing things right is the only way to build trust in our way of understanding and practicing hospitality.