Welcome to Apollo Hotels' paradise

Let us show you a heavenly place.

Feel the bliss that comes by being close to the timeless elements that have been touched by Apollo; the Ancient Greek god of harmony, music and the sun itself, is apparent everywhere.

Apollo Hotels offer guests exuberance of spirit. It is in the air you breathe. It is in the nature that surrounds, in the endless Aegean blue, in the sophistication of the architecture and design and in the warm hospitality. Rest assured, Apollo Hotels are meant to be your personal holiday paradise.

Our beachfront hotels in Rhodes are set directly on an enchanting sandy beach of crystal clear waters and nested in green landscapes comprising stunning seascapes, as well as providing a wide range of facilities, services and excellent gastronomy.

They are conveniently located on the east coast of the island, making them the ideal base to explore Rhodes. They are just 14 km from the city center and the Medieval City, a UNESCO world Heritage site and 35 km from the picturesque village of Lindos.

Apollo Hotels have received many international awards by guests, tourism organizations and tour operators for the quality of their services and their commitment to environmental protection.

Apollo Hotels Sustainability Policy

APOLLO Hotels are committed to the adoption at all efficient measures aiming at the protection and sustainable management of the natural environment wherein we operate.

Fully aware of the impact that the operation of our Hotels are bound to have on the Environment, the Management has made, since 2012, top priority objective to minimize the environmental footprint of the Hotels as well as the environmental impact of the various partners, suppliers and contractors,  directly connected to our activities.

By joining forces, we may all contribute to securing a clean and safe Environment as well as ensuring that Environmental issues remain high on the agenda, taken quite seriously into account as of the adoption of any decision and the launching of any action.

• Our aim is to:

• Fully conform with National and European legislation

• Ensure that all members of our staff as well as each of our Executives have been assigned specific tasks aimed at protecting the environment and securing biodiversity

• Encourage our human resources to always operate in ways not impacting the environment

• Continuously pursue and tangibly contribute to the effort of preserving natural resources by using Water and resources in an environmentally responsible way whilst offering top quality services that meet the expectations of our clientele.

• Prioritize our cooperation with local producers and suppliers

• Assess our performance and set challenging tasks for our Environmental Performance, thereby achieving CONTINUOUS IMPROVEMENT.

• Get supplied with goods and services known to have the minimum possible impact on the Environment, privileging those benefiting from Eco-label certification, whenever possible.

• Relentlessly strive to ensure the support of our clientele as well as making sure at all times that they are fully aware of our Environmental Policy and that they are actively contributing to its implementation.

• Ensure that our partners and suppliers are conversant with our Environmental Policy as well as encouraging them to adopt similar policies towards reducing the environmental impact of their activities.

• Carry out regular controls and reviews our activities and adopt corrective actions whenever discrepancies are detected from the original Environmental Objectives of our company.

• Provide all kinds of support as well as the necessary training to our staff, so that they are in turn in a position to attain the objectives and live up to the policy of our company.

QS-P-00-6 FOOD QUALITY AND SAFETY POLICY

QS-P-00-7 SUSTAINABILITY POLICIES

QS-P-00-9 POLICY TO PREVENT AND COMBAT VIOLENCE
For its efforts our hotels have earned many environmental accolades and certifications, such as:

• ISO 22000 Certification
• ISO 9001 Certification
• ISO 14001 Certification

Sustainability Report 2021

Help us protect the environment

2012 — Where it started

• We installed an automatic composter and began composting all the organic waste from our kitchens and gardens. What grew here goes back into here.
• We extended recycling to every material we handle: paper, plastic, metal, glass, cooking oils, batteries, lamps, electrical and electronic equipment, ink cartridges. Bins went into both the back-of-house and guest areas, and we signed with a licensed recycling company.
• We changed the way we clean. Strict cleaning schedules for every station, so that the quantity of chemicals actually came down. All detergents concentrated, diluted by automatic dosing units instead of by eye.
• We moved to Ecolabel-certified floor detergents and Ecolabel-certified paper products — copy paper, toilet paper, hand towels.
• We withdrew single-use cups and replaced them with reusable ones.
• We began replacing every light fitting with LED.
• We decommissioned the oil boiler. From that point on, the hot water in both hotels has been produced entirely by solar collectors and heat pumps.

2013 — The EU Ecolabel

• Apollo Beach was awarded the EU Ecolabel — at the time, one of only a handful of hotels in the whole of Greece to hold it. We applied in September 2013, our premises were inspected in October, and the national Ecolabel Awarding Council granted the award in December.
• To get there we carried out our first complete mapping of our environmental impact: where the energy goes, where the water goes, what we throw away and why. That map is still the foundation of everything that followed.
• We fitted flow restrictors to taps and showers, set every cistern to its lowest level, and installed push-button taps on the beach and pool showers so that no water runs unattended.
• We insulated the pipework, moved to Energy Star appliances, and installed timers and motion sensors wherever they made sense — gardens, public toilets, saunas, refrigeration.
• We withdrew single-use amenities from the rooms at Apollo Beach: shower caps, sewing kits, individually packaged toiletries.
• We began informing our guests through signage and leaflets, and changing linen on request rather than automatically every day.

2014 — Certification, and the first serious look at our water

• We were certified to ISO 9001 and ISO 22000, and Apollo Blue received its Travelife award.
• Apollo Blue was chosen as a model hotel for a water footprint study run with Thomas Cook and a professor from a German university. Consumption was measured separately at every point of use — cistern, shower, basin, pool, irrigation, kitchen — and an action plan was drawn up for each one. For the first time, we stopped guessing.
• We installed new solar collectors on every available stretch of roof.
• We replaced all the window frames in the older building with modern double glazing.
• We converted our chillers to an environmentally friendly refrigerant.
• We decided that from then on, every bulb that fails is replaced with an LED. No exceptions.

2015 — Linen changed when you ask for it

• We rolled out towel reuse and linen change on request across both hotels. A towel that does not need washing saves water, energy and detergent all at once.
• The findings of the water study were put to work: teams were formed for each area of the hotel, each responsible for reducing consumption at its own points.
• We reduced how often we backwash the pool filters — one of the largest and least visible water consumers in any hotel.
• We continued automating the garden irrigation and replacing lamps with LEDs.

2016 — Waste management

• We joined the Futuris waste management programme.
• Apollo Blue was selected as a model hotel again, this time for a food sustainability study: what actually gets eaten, what is left over, and what need not be cooked at all.
• The monthly water metering we had started three years earlier picked up a sudden jump in consumption. It was a leak in the main pool. It could not be repaired mid-season, but it went straight into the winter works programme.
• We gave priority to native species in our gardens — plants already suited to the climate of Rhodes, which ask for very little water.

2017 — ISO 14001 and a major energy upgrade

• We were certified to ISO 14001, the international standard for environmental management.
• We completed our participation in the Futuris waste management programme.
• We installed two new high-efficiency heat pumps with heat recovery: while they chill the water for the air conditioning, they capture the heat that would otherwise be wasted and use it to heat the domestic hot water. At the same time we replaced the ageing chillers with new units.
• Because of that, we were able to remove the old steam boilers from the plant room for good.
• We repaired the leak in the main pool and water consumption returned to its normal level.

2018 — The irrigation system pays off

• Apollo Beach received its Travelife award.
• We completed the replacement of every light fitting with LED.
• We installed automatic irrigation in the gardens. The effect was immediate and large: irrigation water fell by between 10% and 67% month on month against 2017 — and that while we had added roughly 2,000 m² of new lawn at Apollo Beach that had not been watered at all the year before.
• The year closed with 8% less energy and 18% less water overall.
• The new heat pumps allowed us to raise the water above 70°C for thermal shock treatment of the network — a cleaner system without additional chemicals.
• We began the process for the Greek Breakfast mark, reworking our breakfast around products from Rhodes and the rest of Greece. The audit by the accredited inspection body took place in September 2018.

2019 — The end of single-use plastic

• We replaced all single-use plastic items — straws, teaspoons, stirrers — with paper, wooden or biodegradable alternatives.
• We installed a fully automated dosing and electronic monitoring system on the laundry machines, cutting chemical use further.
• We installed a reverse osmosis plant. It uses energy to run and it rejects water — it is not free. We chose it because it lets us treat hard, non-potable groundwater instead of drawing on the island’s drinking water reserves. And because the water no longer leaves scale behind, our use of descaling agents — among the most toxic chemicals any hotel handles — dropped sharply, while towels, taps and machinery last considerably longer.
• We chemically cleaned the solar collectors and replaced 15 that were blocked. Their output rose so much that they now produce water at up to 85°C.
• We replaced all the interior and exterior lighting in the Apollo Blue rooms with LEDs.
• We completed the automatic irrigation system at both hotels.
• We renovated 55 bathrooms with low-flush cisterns and double-insulated hot water pipes.
• We cut the number of wash cycles: by stocking the linen rooms properly, the machines now always run full loads instead of half empty.
• We reduced the depth of the main pool at Apollo Beach — less water, fewer chemicals, less energy to heat it.

2020 — The year we went backwards

• The pandemic health protocols required individual portions, single-use gloves and masks, and far more intensive disinfection. The single-use plastics we had eliminated in 2019 came back, and chemical consumption rose. We recorded it, we did not hide it, and we began reversing it immediately.
• We replaced the entire hot and cold water network along with its insulation. The old pipes were leaking where nobody could see it — and we were losing water every single day.
• We installed a new heat pump for the private pools at Apollo Blue, replacing conventional heating.
• The first full season of reverse osmosis operation, with a visible improvement in water quality and in our microbiological results.
• Apollo Beach was certified with the Greek Breakfast mark of the Hellenic Chamber of Hotels.
• We moved all ordering and stock control onto an electronic system. Less paper, but above all: we now order exactly what we need and throw away far less.
• On our menu, over 80% of the fish is now fresh and from local fishing grounds. We reduced meat — beef in particular — replaced tinned goods with fresh ingredients prepared in our own kitchens, and swapped imported pulses for Greek varieties.

2021 — Back on course

• We began recovering the ground lost on single-use plastic: wherever the protocols allowed it, disposable serving items went back to being real ones.
• We installed the first electric vehicle charging stations for our guests.
• We removed the old sewage treatment unit, which had become a mosquito breeding site requiring constant chemical treatment. In its place we built a car park with a new automatic irrigation system.
• We joined WWF’s Hotel Kitchen programme for the reduction of food waste.
• We installed automatic chlorine dosing on the pools, with electronic monitoring and recording. Stable water quality with the smallest possible quantity of chemicals.
• We replaced the windows in the main restaurant at Apollo Beach with openable frames and fitted insect screens, so the room can cool naturally instead of by air conditioning.
• We insulated the roof above the Apollo Beach reception.

2022 — The Rhodian sun goes on the grid

• In September 2022 our photovoltaic system came online. Since then, part of the electricity the hotels consume is generated right here, by the sun of Rhodes.
• We fitted external thermal insulation to Building A, so it needs less energy for warmth in winter and cooling in summer.
• We replaced the ovens in the main kitchens with far more efficient units.
• The first full season of automatic pool chlorination with electronic recording.
• Fresh, locally caught fish reached 85% of all the fish we buy.

2023 — The first full solar year

• The first complete year of photovoltaic generation: approximately 146,000 kWh of clean electricity produced on site.
• We added two more electric vehicle charging stations.
• We took delivery of our first electric three-wheeler for the maintenance department, replacing a petrol vehicle.
• We installed new automatic-recording scales, so we know exactly how much waste we produce and where we can reduce it.
• We replaced old refrigeration and dishwashing equipment with lower-consumption units.
• We extended our cooperation with the environmental organisation “Gia ti Fysi” to both hotels.
• Both hotels now hold the Greek Breakfast mark. We have held it without interruption since, with the current certification running to 2027.
• We adopted 2023 as the new baseline year for all our environmental indicators — it was the first year of normal, unrestricted operation after the pandemic.

2024 — One chapter closes, a new threat appears

• We closed our Travelife certification cycle in September 2024, after a decade of continuous participation. Our environmental management continues under our ISO 14001 certified system: the same indicators, the same measurements, the same annual review.
• Our photovoltaic system generated approximately 144,000 kWh.
• A second electric three-wheeler, this time for the pools department.
• We changed how we water: no longer fixed programmes, but irrigation matched to what each planting actually needs, under the supervision of an agronomist.
• On 30 November 2024 we were hit by a flood. We formally added extreme weather to our environmental risk assessment and designed a programme of protective works, so that chemicals or fuel can never escape from the basement areas.

2025 — Rebuilding, and being straight about the numbers

• We recorded our lowest figures in years: 24.3 kWh of energy and 0.68 m³ of water per overnight stay, 6.4% and 21% below 2024. But we want to be honest about why. After the flood of November 2024 our laundry was out of action and a large part of our linen was washed off site. A hotel laundry is one of the biggest consumers of water and energy there is, so a significant part of that reduction is not a saving we made — it simply moved somewhere else. We say so because a number is only worth anything when you know what sits behind it.
• It was the first full season with demand-based irrigation in our gardens, replacing fixed schedules: we water when and as much as each plant actually needs, not by the clock.
• We removed the fountain at the entrance of Apollo Blue. It was beautiful, but it evaporated water every day of the summer and offered nothing else in return.
• We completely renovated the bathrooms in the B wing of Apollo Beach: new vertical pipework and drainage, and bathtubs replaced with showers — a shower uses a fraction of the water a bath does.
• We insulated the roof above the Apollo Blue reception, ending years of water leaks.
• We replaced 80 air conditioning units in the Apollo Beach rooms with new, lower-consumption ones.
• We installed new laundry machines that wash the same load with less water, less energy and less detergent. 2026, with the laundry back at full capacity, will be the first year that shows clearly what we have gained.
• We isolated the buffet preparation areas at both hotels so the correct temperatures are held without over-cooling.
• We replaced the lighting along the garden walkways with new, more economical circuits and fittings.
• We completed the flood protection works: ramps and watertight doors at the entrances, a protective wall and new drainage in the basement areas.
• We joined the “Green Productive Investment for SMEs” programme under the ESPA 2021–2027 Competitiveness framework, to fund the next generation of energy and water saving investments.
• Our photovoltaic system generated approximately 116,000 kWh.

Our Awards

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