The Casual Forest reaches the milestone of 1,000 planted trees

June 2025. Coinciding with the celebration of the first semester since its creation, Casual Hoteles has taken stock of one of its flagship sustainability projects.

It is the Casual Forest, a natural space that the chain is helping to regenerate in Perales de la Alfama (Teruel), after it was devastated more than 500 years ago to use the wood from the trees that populated it in the construction of the ships for the Spanish Armada.

According to the president and founder of Casual Hoteles, Juan Carlos Sanjuán, “We wanted to go beyond typical symbolic actions, proposing a simple but transformative initiative: giving up the cleaning service during the stay at our hotels and allocating that amount to the reforestation of a lost ecosystem.”

“This project represents an invitation to individual responsibility through a small, everyday gesture. We are proud to see how hundreds of travelers have responded positively,” adds Sanjuán.

A real forest growing thanks to shared sustainability:

In just 6 months since the project was launched, the Casual Forest already occupies an area of 1 hectare, which is equivalent to 55 reforested padel courts, and is growing at a rate of approximately 3 new trees per day. To date, the forest has begun to absorb 3 tons of CO₂, out of the 227 tons estimated once the project is fully developed.

Additionally, this action has generated more than 300 hours of rural employment, linked to planting, maintenance, and management tasks, involving 37 people from the so-called “empty Spain.”

The selected species—such as the Austrian pine, common cypress, holm oak, snowy mespilus, and Portuguese oak—are native or specially adapted to the harsh climatic conditions of the Teruel steppe. These varieties favor biodiversity, prevent soil erosion, and consolidate an ecosystem resistant to pests and invasive species.

The Casual Forest is part of a broader environmental recovery action, within the “Vértice del Frío” (Cold Vertex) initiative, led by the company Retree.

Profile of the environmentally committed traveler:

At the close of the first semester of the implementation of this project, Casual Hoteles has profiled the type of traveler who has contributed the most to the growth of the Casual Forest.

According to the chain’s Internal Barometer, during this first semester, the hotels whose clients participated most in this initiative were Casual Pop Art Benidorm (11.09%), Casual Raizes Porto (9.5%), Casual del Mar Málaga (9%), and Casual Colours Barcelona (8.31%).

The majority of people who preferred to forgo the cleaning service and donate the cost to the growth of the Casual Forest were clients traveling as a couple (64%), followed by individuals (23%), with a majority being of British (40%), Italian (17.30%), and French (11.30%) nationality, and whose stay at the hotel was 2.63 days.

About Casual Hoteles:

Casual Hoteles is a Valencian hotel company, founded in 2013 by Juan Carlos Sanjuán, with the goal of becoming the benchmark for thematic urban accommodation in Spain. All of its hotels have personalized decor, inspired by the destinations in which they are located, and offer quality standards and central locations at affordable prices.

They are fun, surprising, and provocative, making Casual Hoteles a disruptive chain that, in 2018, was recognized with the Hostelco Award for “Best Hotel Concept”; in 2023, it obtained the First Prize for Tourism Sustainability from HOSBEC, in the “Best Corporate Social Responsibility Strategy” category; and in 2024, it was chosen as the “Chain with the best Corporate Social Responsibility” in the XIV Edition of the Roca Awards for Hotel Initiative.

In this sense, the group also stands out for its policy of strong social and environmental commitment through its own Code of Ethics, and for its collaborations with NGOs such as Save the Children and UNICEF, among others.

Currently, Casual Hoteles has 27 hotels and 1,026 rooms in 16 cities in Spain, Portugal, Italy, and Greece, of which 1 is under management, 18 are operated under a lease agreement, and 8 are franchises. Furthermore, in 2025 it plans to incorporate 1 new hotel in Naples (34 rooms), which is currently under construction.