Having an EV charger will soon become an essential plus when choosing a holiday destination. In Italy, thanks to partnerships and agreements, the number of hotels and B&Bs with charging points is growing: the portals where you can find them and the opportunities for businesses to round off what they offer their guests, from their own infrastructure to Charging Point Operators
by Matteo Bonassi
With July, we are already in the thick of the summer holidays, a crucial season, especially considering the two previous years during which the tourism business was severely hit by the pandemic. In the meantime, the electric mobility landscape has also changed radically: 297,000 cars including BEVs and plug-in hybrids, 30,700 public charging points (figures from Motus-E) and the ban on combustion engines from 2035 approved by the European Parliament. A necessary preamble to reiterate, if there were still any doubt, that charging points at accommodation properties (hotels, B&Bs and agriturismi) will soon become an essential service. Not having them could mean, as early as this year, that businesses are crossed off the list of possible destinations by many potential customers driving an electric vehicle.
BEV-proof search engines
Among the most popular portals for finding accommodation with a charging station is EViaggio.it: 1,882 destinations, of which 308 have been verified by the portal’s managers, who enrich the information with dedicated listings showing the number of chargers, power and compatibility. The site also features reviews written by users themselves, in a format that essentially replicates TripAdvisor’s. Another portal that lets you identify the presence of charging points is Booking.com, although it does not provide detailed information about the infrastructure available. The same goes for AirBnb.it: among the available search criteria you can tick the presence of EV charging, but the property information pages do not specify its characteristics. The website of the association Motus-E instead lists Electric Friendly certified properties, that is, destinations particularly committed to sustainable tourism that have chosen to include charging among the services they offer and have had their infrastructure quality-checked by Ev-noW!, a foundation that has been supporting electric mobility in Italy for over 15 years.
[Source: “Charging on the road: the accommodation providers offering the service (and how to get set up)”, E-Ricarica.it, 12 July 2022 https://e-ricarica.it/ricaricare-in-viaggio-le-strutture-ricettive-che-offrono-il-servizio-e-come-fare-per-attrezzarsi]
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