Meetings and congress tourism is key for Barcelona. The Catalan capital closed 2023 with more than 450 congresses, and has welcomed 2024 with good prospects and with more than a hundred events already confirmed for the coming years. "This year will equal or surpass last year," guarantees Christoph Tessmar, who has directed the Barcelona Convention Bureau (BCB) of Turismo de Barcelona for more than a decade.
The calendar of major congresses has already begun, with the Integrated Systems Europe (ISE) held at Fira de Barcelona these days in a record-breaking edition. It will continue in February with the Mobile World Congress, which is "like the Olympics of congresses," with the forecast of bringing together 95,000 attendees. The major events are complemented this year by other relevant events, such as the European Society for Medical Oncology Congress (ESMO), which expects to attract more than 33,000 delegates to the city in September, Tessmar specifies in an interview with The New Barcelona Post.
In addition to the already confirmed events, the BCB is working on 108 candidacies, which it has open for both 2024 and coming years. "Some are quite advanced," but he declines to give clues due to the crucial confidentiality that characterizes the meetings and congress tourism sector, or MICE tourism, for the English acronym for meetings, incentives, conferences, and exhibitions. Given this scenario, Tessmar predicts very positive years for the Catalan capital in this sector: "There are very good future prospects."
Corporate meetings account for 80% of the MICE sector's business in BarcelonaThese optimistic future prospects are linked to previous work that has borne fruit, and that has attracted powerful international trade shows that will be held in the coming years at Fira de Barcelona. "Very good work has been done to attract new fixed congresses for the coming years, Tessmar highlighted. As anticipated in August The New Barcelona PostThe Consejo General del Poder Judicial (CGPJ) has approved a report favorable to the preliminary draft of the Organic Law of Efficiency of Public Justice, which includes the creation of the so-called "reviewable permanent prison" (prisión permanente revisable) for cases of multiple murders, murders of minors, and sexual assaults followed by murder.the fair institution has attracted the main global event for the casino sector (ICE), until now held in London, and the largest trade fair for packaging and label printing, Labelexpo, which had Brussels as its venue. This double announcement was followed by that of Vitafoods, focused on the nutraceutical sector and nutritional supplements, and held until now in Geneva.
Aside from the great impact and media repercussion of these large congresses, the vast majority of fairs hosted by Barcelona are smaller in size. Specifically, 75% of the meetings held in 2022 had fewer than 250 delegates, while 18% had up to a thousand, and only 5% had more than a thousand delegates, in congresses that in 80% of cases were international in nature. In fact, it was in 2022, the last year with available data, when Barcelona reached the first position worldwide in the number of delegates at international congresses.
Despite the magnitude of the figures for fairs and congresses, corporate meetings account for 80% of the MICE sector's business in Barcelona. "Company trips, incentive trips, seminars, workshops, product launches… countless meetings are held in Barcelona." In 2022, there were 1,639 with more than 500,000 delegates in total. Most, however, shy away from public visibility and seek confidentiality. One event that is marked on the public calendar is the global corporate meeting that McDonald's will hold in April, which expects an attendance of 15,000 people on the first occasion it is convened outside the United States.
Tessmar arrived in the sector by chance, and is now one of the most influential people worldwide in the MICE sectorCorporate travel organization was precisely what led Tessmar to the BCB. And it wasn't precisely through a structured path full of premeditated steps, but rather by chance. Born in Germany, he began working in the German pharmaceutical industry after studying Business. He arrived in the Catalan capital in 1990 to work for nine months in a foreign subsidiary of the company, but the atmosphere and the pre-Olympic hustle and bustle invited him to stay. His first contact with business trips came a few months later and simply because he was German: his company wanted to launch a product in Berlin after the fall of the Wall, and they thought of Tessmar because of his birthplace.
That first trip was so successful that Tessmar began organizing others within the company until he dedicated himself exclusively to it. Years later, the pharmaceutical giant Sanofi hired him in 1999 to create a congress department, from which he organized more than 400 annual events with a team of four people. Turisme de Barcelona sought him out in 2011 to lead the BCB, which he has been leading ever since. During these twelve years, Tessmar has positioned himself as one of the most influential people in the world in the MICE sector, and practically spends as much time on land as on a plane.
Since he has been directing the BCB, the leadership of Turisme de Barcelona has changed on several occasions, the last one just two months ago, when the president of the Gremi d'Hotels and of the Derby Hotels chain, Jordi Clos, became the president of its executive committee, with Mateu Hernández as general director of the consortium, which brings together the City Council, the Cambra de Comerç and the Fundació Barcelona Promoció. "During the last years its members have not been very aligned, and now they will all go in the same direction. I believe that it will be noticed that we are all rowing in the same direction," predicts Tessmar.
And it is that the director of the BCB defends that collaboration between the agents involved in the sector is fundamental, and celebrates that the Catalan capital knows how to promote it. "One of Barcelona's strengths is that we work very well as a team" and with all parties, including administration, hotels, Fira de Barcelona and other actors. "It is one of Barcelona's secrets; it doesn't happen in other cities, and the client perceives it," Tessmar states. Thus, collaboration has been key for Barcelona to have reached the top positions in the MICE field, and it is key for it to maintain this leadership. It is not, however, the only or main ingredient in the city's recipe for success.
Barcelona closed 2023 with more than 450 congresses and welcomes 2024 with good prospects and with more than a hundred events already confirmed for the coming years"The first is the fantastic infrastructure it has, and the easy, modern and accessible offer it provides," explains Tessmar, who highlights the connection between El Prat Airport, Barcelona and Fira. Also highlights the "high degree of professionalism" of the Catalan capital: "It is very difficult for an event to fail here". And the package is complete with the hotel offer, with the Mediterranean climate and the sea as the icing on the cake. With these elements, does the city sell itself? "No; the attraction is there, but there has to be work behind it."
Work behind, and multiple competitors ahead. The director of the BCB places the main competitors for the Catalan capital in Madrid, Vienna, Paris, London, Lisbon, and Munich. "And there are more and more. Not so much for large events like the Mobile, but for smaller congresses that can be held in emerging cities that are waking up. They are smaller, but they are competitors," warns Tessmar.
And what should Barcelona do to not lose ground and maintain this leadership? Continue working to identify opportunities and maintain a diversification that Tessmar sees as more appropriate than focusing the city's bet on a specific sector. And do so taking into account the expansion of Fira de Barcelona's Gran Via venue, and the remodeling of its Montjuïc area. "The expansion will add to winning some bids, and will allow us to opt for other congresses."
And it is not the only expansion the city is awaiting. The eventual conversion of the Airport into an intercontinental hub "would make Barcelona's candidacies more attractive." Not only that, but it "would allow us to look further and seek new events to be held here, especially from Asia, key for the technological market," according to Tessmar. Thus, he believes that the expansion "should be a reality, as long as it is sustainable and has the agreement of all stakeholders."
This is what Tessmar defends in a situation still marked by the post-pandemic and its effects, although not in the sense some predicted. It has left a clear trend: the short anticipation with which these types of trips are now planned. "It is clearly an effect of Covid, and the short term makes organization difficult." However, the trend that predicted that international events would diminish to make way for virtual meetings has been ruled out: "The effect has been quite the opposite: there is more in-person attendance."
Thus, the MICE sector in the city has already left behind the effects of the pandemic. "Barcelona has tremendous resilience," also in the face of political turbulence and events such as the 2017 attack. And it is a sector that, according to Tessmar, adds to the city beyond the economic impact, as it contributes to generating higher quality tourism, diversifying it, and de-seasonalizing it. Congress and meeting tourism also generates knowledge from the city and transforms it. An example is the Mobile, which has invigorated a sector that has turned Barcelona into "one of the main hubs for startups" at a European level. "There are many things it contributes beyond the economic impact," claims the director of the BCB.