Are you trying to find the perfect hotel in which to spend your holidays with children in Sardinia? Are you looking for the best destinations for romantic holidays for two or honeymoons by the sea? Delphina is delighted to present its collection of hotels and resorts, each with its own character and a wide range of facilities and services made to measure for your dream holiday.
Passion for the environment can be seen in little everyday gestures but also in responsible and far-sighted choices that tell the story of 30 years of Delphina hotels & resorts, our collection of 4 and 5 star structures facing the North Sardinia sea in Gallura between the Costa Smeralda, the La Maddalena Archipelago and the Golfo dell’Asinara.

Nature has always been at the heart of our projects, not just as a source of inspiration, but also a resource to be protected in order to offer holidays where people can discover the authentic Sardinia and enjoy a sense of freedom in contact with our unique nature. This is the essence of the “We are green®” brand, created and registered by Delphina to represent our commitment to the environment. A collection of good practices and territorial enhancement initiatives that follow a route aimed at a sustainable future for the land we love.

It is for the above passion and belief that Delphina Hotels & Resorts have won, and deservedly so, the World Travel Awards - World’s Leading Green Independent Hotel Group at this year’s award ceremony.

BTN caught up with their Brand Manager , Elena Muntoni to find out more:

BTN: Congratulations on winning the award for the World’s Leading Green Independent Hotel Group at the Grand Final of the 2022 World Travel Awards. This is a remarkable feat, can you tell me why you think that your hotels are deemed the greenest, and what winning this award means to you and all your staff?

DH: Thank you, I am so proud that Delphina hotels & resorts have been awarded the greenest in the world. I believe this is because we are a local family-run independent chain, so we genuinely care about preserving and supporting the local culture and environment because it is who we are and part of our heritage, not just our business.

The ethos of sustainability is rooted in our DNA and was present when the first hotel was designed and constructed over 30 years ago, seamlessly fitting in to the natural landscape and showcasing all local flora and fauna. Since then we have invested heavily with time, research and resources to improve our practices and even be innovative in our field. We truly want many generations after us to continue to discover the natural wonders of Sardinia, which is why we registered our “We Are Green®” brand, to take meaningful action and make a long-term commitment to helping the environment.

Winning the World’s Leading Green Independent Hotel Group award is incredibly meaningful to myself and all Delphina staff, it is a goal we have worked hard for and have now achieved. We will proudly display the award across our hotels, to inspire staff and guests, and it will serve as motivation to stay green – now that we have the world title crown we don’t want to give it up!

BTN: How do you intend to promote this success to your staff, crew and more importantly your customers?

DH: Winning this award is a big deal for us so I will make sure not only that it is communicated to all parties but that everyone involved in the business, including local suppliers, is thanked and acknowledged for being a part of the winning team. It takes commitment and action from every department to be truly green, sometimes it’s not always the easiest, quickest or cheapest option but it is worth it for the bigger picture and achieving our shared goal. There will be many celebratory aperitifs and lunches with staff members to toast our success over the coming days!

I will also continue to promote and educate our green practices to staff with regular training and updates and will share all news with guests through information in their rooms with ways that they can support our green mission.

BTN: You clearly have a passion for the environment and are keen to drive sustainability, is this something that your customers are making more and more demands for?

DH: Absolutely, many of our visitors are repeat guests who have been coming to Delphina for many years, so they understand and support our mission and they admire the green updates they find year on year. I’m also delighted to see that the new young generation who are coming out and exploring the world for the first time are more eco-conscious and informed than ever, so not only do they appreciate our air-tight green policies but expect them!

I’m very grateful that we have guests from across the world who love what we stand for and seek out companies who provide healthy tourism. They know we only work with local partners who share our love of nature to provide authentic experiences, excursions and tastes of our ancient culture. One of our most popular guest offerings is our ‘Genuine Local Food Oriented®’ project, a Delphina quality brand, in support of healthy, high quality cuisine based on genuine ingredients that respect seasonality, ideally at 0 km

BTN:  What do you offer that your competitors do not, why are your properties creating a sustainable vision for the future, and what more do you think you can do over the coming years.

I can’t speak for competitors, but I know Delphina has been awarded world’s greenest because we go the extra mile, and always have done. We have given significant time, energy and resources to challenging every aspect of our hospitality offering and invested to make improvements, both front and back of house. We have worked really hard for many years to invest and implement sustainable practices in everything we do, not worrying that all these practises and the use of green energy implies higher costs and greater working commitment.

Our ‘We Are Green®’ brand is not a box-ticking or ‘greenwashing’ exercise to appear ethical, it is a genuine effort from a local family and independent brand that want to lead the way and make a lasting positive impact.  In the last five years Delphina has saved 16,918 tons of CO2, the equivalent of what 119,612 trees would absorb in one year. We use Ecolabel products for ordinary cleaning, and the courtesy line of SPA products are eco-bio certified and paraben free; electric vehicles only with on-site chargers; vegetable-based inks for catalogues and printing materials which are certified by the FSC (Forest Stewardship Council) or PEFC (Program for Endorsement of Forest Certification Schemes). The kitchenware is made from sustainable materials, and we limit the use of plastic in favour of biodegradable materials for lunch boxes, straws, cutlery, plates and glasses, and replacing all plastic bottles in the hotels with glass, tetrapak or cans. All our staff and collaborators received a free reusable water bottle and we specially installed fountains across our hotels and resorts. This resulted in saving 68,700 plastic bottles per year.

One of Delphina’s hotels in Badesi, Resort & SPA Le Dune, houses a 5-hectare vegetable garden where we source ingredients for meals across all resorts. It includes a range of aromatic herb and fruit trees as well as a chicken coop and aviary where families can explore, pick up eggs, and learn about the origins of their food and how it is maintained. Some children who come to us have never seen fruit being picked from trees or vegetables pulled from the ground, so we take time to educate and encourage an interest in nature.

Over the coming years, as sustainability takes different forms through innovation and technological advancements, we will focus on the best and latest research and solve new challenges that arise, same as we have been doing for the past 30+ years.

BTN: Do you think the tourism boards in your regions do enough to promote sustainability and green thinking in line with your own vision and plans?

DH: Local tourism boards do promote green thinking but there is always more to do, for us and for them. We will continue to work closely with them to protect our environment and support our local communities. We will share insights, knowledge and news of our awards to align on messaging and visions for the future.

BTN: You are to be congratulated for how your hotels have embraced the green revolution, climate action is needed now, what do you think world tourism leaders need to do to ensure other resorts follow your ideals and actions.

DH: By operating responsible tourism we can add value to the location and support local businesses and the economy, this is why Sardinia, and indeed Delphina, is flourishing. We make major investments every year to support offers and services to provide the best quality holiday to our guests in ever-renewed and welcoming environments. Our aim is to increase investments in training for collaborators and partners to match high quality hospitality as well as being aware and sensitive to environmental and social sustainability issues. We intend to strive to concretise and quantify our choices and commitment, achieving increasingly important results and numbers.

To find out more about this group visit https://www.delphinahotels.co.uk/sardinia/hotels/