Sebastià Català, Founder & CEO of Bluesea Hotels

 Innovation and sustainability as keys to success in the tourism sector. 

We took advantage of the Fitur fair to explore the challenges, achievements, and trends that set the course within the tourism sector in the complex post-COVID recovery scenario.

Sebastià Català, founder and CEO of BLUESEA Hotels since 2009, has guided the chain from its first acquisition, the Hotel Don Jaime in Mallorca, to becoming a prominent hotel group with nearly 30 establishments in Spain's main tourist destinations. With more than 30 years of experience in the hotel industry, Català has focused his leadership on innovation, sustainable management, and the development of accessible tourism, maintaining the values of a family business committed to quality tourism for the middle market.

During the interview, Sebastià Català highlights the main challenges faced by BLUESEA Hotels in 2023: adapting to sustainability, the shortage of qualified talent in the hotel sector, and the transformation towards a model that balances quality and profitability. Additionally, he emphasizes that the implementation of EISI HOTEL has resulted in greater agility and operational efficiency, a positive surprise that promotes enthusiasm for continued collaboration. Looking ahead to 2024, Català notes that the challenge continues to be adapting to the rapid changes in the sector, especially in understanding the expectations of new generations and maintaining a balance that ensures success.

What have been the major challenges in 2023?

For us, there have been three: adapting to times of sustainability, conservation, and governance.

Talent, which we have many problems with today because we do not have enough trained people in our sector, because the good people are highly sought after by everyone in the sector, and also because the legal labor issue, frankly, leaves the employer somewhat defenseless.

Another important challenge is the transformation of our sector, from three to four stars, to find the balance between quality and making the room profitable. So that balance between CAPEX and the demand we have today, because we have a great demand after the pandemic, in general, the hotel sector has been very happy with what is happening. It is adapting to this new situation, which is a challenge because everything is moving very quickly, and at Bluesea, we are in the process of adapting. Considering that we are facing four generations working at the same time for the first time, making that balance sometimes complicated.

You mentioned operational efficiency. Now that you have been working with EISI HOTEL for a few months, what are the main benefits you have experienced?

For me, it has been a positive surprise with this tool, in the sense that there is much more agility, we have much more information, fewer processes, and everything flows faster, which is very positive. Personally, I want to congratulate you because the project looks very good, and we are excited to continue working with you. We will see how the process develops and how we adapt to it because, as I said before, everything is evolving very quickly.

Regarding what you mentioned earlier about attracting staff, how do you think specialized training can optimize existing human resources?

There are several points, but one is that staff feel valued because we are investing in training, and on the other hand, the way of transmitting that knowledge in a way that is not boring but provides the worker with training.

From your position, what challenges do you think the sector will face in 2024?

As I said before, mainly adapting to the transformation we are experiencing, because we have many different generations working at the same time, with mentality changes that make it challenging to understand what the new generation wants or what is expected of hospitality. We are increasingly clear about this, mainly, not deceiving the customer. We work in a sector that is value for money, which means giving the customer what they expect, and if we can give them a little more, even better, without going overboard. That balance is what gives us the success to keep moving forward. We have an easy customer, but it is a customer that represents 80% of the population, the three-four star customer, and balance is what gives us the success to keep moving forward.