European recovery and green jobs beyond the energy sector: wellbeing opportunity in Spanish tourism sector

This is a paper on Political Economic and Economic Policies into the European Green Deal framework and the Spanish recovery plan, with special attention to the tourism sector. First, there is a literature review, combining the scientific production with professional and institutional literature, to understand the topic development, from the former restrictive point to the current view at large. Second, it is offered a case study about the green jobs opportunity, according to wellbeing economics, for the Spanish tourism sector renewal. The paper provides valuable information to improve sectorial recovery plan, to coordinate the policymakers and the business managers and entrepreneurs.


Introduction
The President of the European Commission (EC), Ursula von der Leyen reaffirmed that climate change is a top priority for the European Union (EU), during the EU Green Week (June, 2021)[1]; then recalling the validity of the European Green Deal (EGD) and its extension [2][3][4][5]. The original objective of a green Europe is making this continent neutral in terms of greenhouse gas emissions by 2050 and using 32% renewable energy by 2030 [6,7]. The EGD has insisted on the importance of moving towards European sustainability decisively, eliminating the negative impact on health of pollution, promoting responsible production and consumption, and embracing the SDGs set by UN [8]. The European strategy has placed special focus on the fast growing employment opportunities in the green economy, the so-called green jobs, which have become the most visible flagship of EGD [9,10]. Also, the EU is working in the improvement of EGD at large, to extend it to every economic sector, in terms of wellbeing economics: the combination of decent work with life satisfaction in better environment (3P relation: profits-planet-people). In this way, this is a great opportunity for the tourism sector, which is growing each year (of course, with the exception of the pandemic crisis and the great lockdown [11], but the forecasts sign a great and fast recovery). In a strategic view, it is a good opportunity to (ILO) [12,13], green jobs should be a source of decent work, jobs that offer equal opportunities in conditions of freedom, equity, security and dignity. International institutions and bodies, such as ILO and UNWTO (into the UN), they have carried out a wide range of studies and publications about the actual possibilities of green jobs in numerous countries and sectors within those countries, including Spain and its tourism sector [14]. Even though tourism does not quite fit into the original list of green jobs, its relevance in worldwide economy make important to study opportunities for green jobs within the tourism industry. In some international reports and studies, tourism is mentioned briefly, but the opportunities for green jobs in this important area for the Spanish economy are not developed in detail.
ILO has confirmed on numerous occasions that the green economy can create new employment opportunities worldwide. What is not so evident is whether these green jobs will be enough to compensate for the loss of other jobs in more traditional industries and sectors, and if all countries and sectors of the economy will benefit equally from the jump to the green economy and the embedded concept of decent work. Whether green jobs can be another source of employment for world tourism is a question that has yet to be fully answered. UNWTO has stated that a more sustainable tourism can provide new green employment opportunities, but studies on the possibilities of green jobs in the Spanish tourism sector have been scarce so far. Therefore, it is important to analyse the real opportunities for green jobs for the Spanish hospitality industry in order to answer a question: are green jobs a source of employment for the Spanish tourism and hospitality?
Spain is one of the most important tourist destinations in the World as well as one of the countries in Europe with the highest percentage of unemployment, so a study of possible opportunities for green jobs in the Spanish tourism sector is valuable. Tourism revenue constituted 12.4% of Spanish GDP in 2019. In 2019, 84 million tourists arrived in Spain, which positioned this country as the most visited in Europe the year before COVID-19 pandemic crisis [15]. That same year, Spain was also designated as the most competitive country in the world in terms of tourism according to the Travel and Tourism Competitiveness Report 2019 prepared by the World Economic Forum (WEF) [16].
This report takes into account various variables when configuring its ranking. One of those variables refers precisely to the quality of human resources in the sector and the existing labour market in the country. Thus, the WEF report indicates that Spain must improve its human resource policies, so the study does not give it the highest assessment in terms of tourism competitiveness in the "human resources and people" section. The report also indicates that, despite being the most competitive country in the World in 2019, the growth of its general competitiveness index is slower than that of other neighbouring countries. This data is an important wake-up call: Spain can and must improve in many aspects of tourism and one of them is precisely the quality of its professionals and the working conditions in tourism industry. It is a matter of time before Spain can be overtaken by countries with faster growth in tourism competitiveness. This is why the study of human resources in the Spanish hospitality as well as testing the opportunities for new jobs, both decent and linked to sustainability, is a relevant area of research. If green jobs mean an opportunity for better employment at the Spanish tourism business, they are something important to study.

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The objective of this work is to analyse the perspectives and challenges that the EGD and the Recovery plan have for the Spanish tourism and more specifically for the hospitality sector, and the real opportunities for wellbeing green jobs in Spanish hotel industry. The structure of the paper is the following: 1) Theoretical framework and literature review, combining scientific production with professional and institutional materials. 2) Comparative study of the main Spanish hotel holdings and their annual CSR, to check the sustainability and employment trends by these hotels. 3) Application of qualitative tools to study the opportunities for growth of green jobs emergence among most important Spanish hotel holdings.

Theoretical framework and literature review
To economize, there is a remission to previous papers, with extended explanations on EGD, Recovery plan and green jobs [9], in the emergence of the Wellbeing Economics   In relation with the green jobs design, their skills and wellbeing stardards, as it is mentioned, the international institutions and forums have offered a reference level to establish a minimum and common scenario [14, 18-24].

Sustainable tourism and green jobs
Since the release of the Brundland Report [25] and its proposal for sustainable development, studies on sustainability and its implications for all sectors of the economy have grown in relevance, both in academic research and in political and economic fields.
Green jobs, described as those jobs generated around the sustainability and EGD, they have become "the emblem of this sustainable economy" according to the UNEP report [26]. Studies on green economy and green tourism have increased substantially in the last decade, but it is also true that there is a lack of studies that determine what green job opportunities exist in the Spanish hotel sector under the umbrella of SDGs and sustainability policies. defines a green job as any decent job that contributes to preserve and restore the quality of the environment, whether it be in agriculture, industry, services or administration, and it does so by reducing the consumption of energy and raw materials, minimizing pollution and waste, protecting and restoring ecosystems and allowing companies and communities to adapt to climate change [40]. They conclude that green jobs are any employed or self-employed job that clearly contributes to a more sustainable World.
Green jobs are often associated to the concept of decent work. The ILO (2013) concludes that both concepts should be worked together due to their link to the SDGs  The primary activities are the most directly linked to sustainability (ecological, agricultural and environmental activities) and sustainable tourism would be included in the group of secondary connected activities or in the third level "dependent activities"( described as other non-sustainable tourist activities). The UNWTO report recognizes the difficulty of correctly discriminating the activities related to green tourism, given that the general data available in reports and censuses do not usually differentiate green jobs.
Only a small group of countries have established metrics for green jobs in all sectors [45]. Regarding to the actual work opportunities for green jobs, when we review the different document and employment estimates provided by EU about employment growth linked to sustainability, the first conclusion is that figures and forecast are very volatile throughout the years. In the case of the EU, the first statements (1997), related on sustainability and antecedent of EGD, it declared that the green economy could create between 950,000 and 1,650,000 green jobs around green energies and sustainability. This very enthusiastic initial estimate has given way to more conservative data over the years.
For example, in 2021, the EU estimated that renewable energies could create between 200,000 and 300,000 jobs by 2030, a much lower figure and which is only 12% from the previous data provided by EU authorities.
A report by Szako [50] concluded that there are possibilities for significant growth in job opportunities in the green economy, and as much as 87 million jobs susceptible of been "greeneable". This not necessarily means the creation of new jobs, but the adaptation that many current jobs, mostly in the energy sector, will experience in their way towards a greener economy. Bowen et al. [51] describe a taxonomy with the changes that green jobs could bring. There will be 1) Existing jobs whose demand will increase in the green economy 2) Existing jobs that will change substantially in tasks, skills and knowledge requiring great re-skilling 3) Emerging new jobs brought up by the demand of the green economy 4) Rival non-green jobs similar to green jobs in different sector and 5) non-green jobs not very likely to be substantially affected by the green economy. The authors don't mention green jobs for tourism, but they assert that there is potential growth of green jobs in tourism linked to the investments in sustainable tourism. Following the mentioned taxonomy tourism seems to fit better in the fifth group, that is, non-green jobs not very likely to be affected by the green economy.
ILO [52] report on opportunities for green jobs mentions Spanish tourism as one of the "areas of opportunities" for the growth of green jobs, given the importance that tourism has for the Spanish economy and the initial impulse of Spanish government towards renewable energies.
The structure of the Spanish labor market is complex, with many more skilled workers than the EU average, but also a higher percentage of unskilled workers than the EU average and far fewer medium skilled workers compared to the EU, which is interpreted as a difficulty at the time to successfully fill the green jobs, which mostly need medium-skilled workers [53,54].
Beyond the initial assessment on tourism and green jobs, ILO report does not make further analysis about the possibilities of green jobs in tourism and hospitality. In its report Green Skills for Green Jobs [55], ILO recommends increasing training in green skills in both job search workers and already employed workers, in the first ones to increase their job opportunities and in the second ones to maintain a high level of employability, because green skills will be important to maintain professional skills and will need to be updated. The report pauses briefly on the tourism sector to mention that people working at tourism will need more training and re-skilling in new knowledges and skills in environmental aspects, especially in topics such as ecotourism, bio tourism Preprints (www.preprints.org) | NOT PEER-REVIEWED | Posted: 12 July 2021 doi:10.20944/preprints202107.0243.v1 and circular tourism and energy management systems, but opportunities for green jobs are not mentioned. Tourism will need skilling and re-skilling on green topics, but not an increase in new and specific green jobs.
Regarding green jobs at the tourism sector in Spain, Sánchez and Poschen [56]

Academic literature on sustainable tourism and green jobs
Sustainable tourism has had broad resonance in tourism research, being perceived as an opportunity to address new issues beyond the negative impacts of the activity, which were present in the literature in previous decades of research [58]. Buckley {59} estimates that more than 5000 papers on sustainable tourism have been published in the last 25 years, confirming the great interest of scholars in sustainability and its implications. Hall [31,60] considers that the relationship between tourism and the environment has become increasingly problematic as it is accepted that tourism leads to a degradation of natural resources in both the short and long term. The author asserts that tourism is essentially about renting a place in another country or another location for a given agreed time, so the risk for the environment in those rented locations can be high if it is not controlled.
Torres-Delgado & Palomeque [61] analyze the policies and studies on sustainability carried out up to that year. His first conclusion is that the proliferation of documents in sustainable tourism has not led to a proportional advance either in theoretical or practical aspects on this concept. Sustainability in tourism research has been first associated with environmental aspects to progress later towards more holistic approaches, seeing sustainability as a tool for economic development, well being and preservation of the concentrating above all on the possibilities of a constantly growing sector and less on aspects of justice and work equity at tourism companies.
Regarding sustainability in the Spanish hotel sector, Ayuso [69] indicates that the tourism sector is less regulated in Spain than other sectors, which has led tourism and Coles et al. [73] point out that studies on sustainability on many occasions ignore the implications for workers in the tourism sector themselves and are surprised by the low interest of employment offered in tourism in relation to quality jobs. Baum et al. [74] declare that many tourism companies have changed their human resource strategies to be for Human Resources Management at Spanish hotels. GHRM is linking its main activities to a green management of people with green recruitment, training and employee's management. When GHRM is put in place, employee's satisfaction increase and happier employees are associated in literature with better company's perfomance.
Sustainability policies and practices are an important tool to attract new generations to hospitality. The tourism industry has traditionally had great difficulty in attracting and retaining good professionals. The jobs offered are in many cases monotonous, with long working hours, shifts and unattractive salaries [77][78][79]. Hospitality is less attractive for the new generations joining the job market. That is why tourism companies worldwide, and especially hotel companies, have made a great effort to increase their attractiveness as employers, shifting from being invisible in the year 2000 to hit top positions in most prestigious lists. Hilton hotels were ranked among the best places to work at on the Fortune 2020 list [80], and many other hotel chains as Marriot or Kimpton also ranking high.
Another aspect to consider is the positive impact of green strategies and green credentials on the image of hotels in order to attract and retain best. Hospitality is interested to attract best candidates and the right sustainability and CSR can create the competitive advantage. Goh et al. [81], their study confirms the interest of the new generations in working in companies that are committed to sustainability. New generations value very positively all aspects of CSR in their potential employers. Tourism companies must compete for the best professionals [82]. Green practices increase employee satisfaction and productivity [83,84]. A green company is more attractive and generates higher levels of satisfaction and commitment in its employees and this is fundamental for the hotel sector (in the way of WBE [10]).

Study case: Green jobs and wellbeing opportunity in Spanish hospitality
Spain had in 2019, right before the COVID-19 crisis, nearly 16,000 hotels with more than 3,500,000 rooms, with 11% of the total hotel supply in Europe, so its importance within the Spanish tourism sector and its contribution to Spanish GDP ranges between 1.5% and 1,7%. Spanish hotels employs more than 200,000 people [85].
Until the 90s, the hotel sector was not very active in sustainability and environment issues, but as of the 2000s, the annual reports of the main companies began to steadily dedicate more time and resources to green topics.
According to their yearly turnover, the top Spanish hotel chains in 2019 were those detailed in Our study has two phases, in the first we analyze the CSR annual reports to detect more outstanding aspects in relation to sustainability and green jobs. In the second part The Spanish hotel holdings studied, they have international presence, with hotels in numerous world destinations and they publish very complete sustainability and CSR reports, with additional information on their human capital and the actions taken to guarantee decent work environments (many of them, they are part of Global   and that can bring out more one hundred percent green jobs and more varied and flexible environmental management models.