The Travelife Gold-certified Sentido Palm Royale hotel in Hurghada, Egypt, is the first hotel to organise a beach clean as part of this year’s Make Holidays Greener campaign.

The Make Holidays Greener campaign, run by the Travel Foundation and Travelife for Hotels and Accommodations, is encouraging tourism companies around the world to organise local beach cleans or area clean-ups. The campaign is also trying to tackle the issue of plastic rubbish in our oceans by providing hoteliers and customers with top tips on how to reduce plastic waste.

The Sentido Palm Royale hotel organised a team of eight staff from different departments to take part in the beach clean of Magawesh island in the Red Sea. They worked with a wider team of more than 100 people from different businesses, sea trip companies, hotels and a school.

The Sentido Palm Royale team alone collected 16 big bags of rubbish, which was mainly plastic. It included plastic bottles, plastic ropes, nappies, glass bottles, wood and aluminium cans. All rubbish bags were brought back to the coast by boat, sorted and recycled. The hotel’s dive centre also ran an underwater clean-up.

On the way back to the port the hotel’s boat was escorted by four dolphins. Iris Jarrett, Assistant Quality Manager at the hotel, said: “It was just like they were saying thank you. Tourists who stay with us can go on boat trips to places where they are more likely to see dolphins in their natural habitat, but the dolphins who escorted us that day are rarely seen so close to the harbour.”

To find out more or sign up to the campaign, go to www.makeholidaysgreener.org.uk