Barcelona is a magnet for travelers. Millions of visitors arrive in the city—by land, sea, and air—to experience its culture, architecture, gastronomy, beaches, and a long etcetera from which each visitor can choose (there is a Barcelona for everyone). But the city is not only accustomed to receiving the world; it also travels it. While hundreds of tourists arrive daily in Barcelona, its citizens make the inverse journey when they become visitors themselves. But, how do Barcelonans travel? What trends do they follow—or generate? What destinations do they prefer?
The answer is multifaceted. "The Barcelonan traveler is very transversal. We are everywhere," highlights Rafa Serra from the Associació Corporativa d'Agències de Viatges Especialitzades (Acave), of which he has been president since February. "There isn't one profile of the Barcelonan traveler, because they take all kinds of trips," they add from the sector. Whether with family, friends, alone, to the other side of the world, or without leaving Catalonia, Barcelonans have established themselves as great travelers. Within this diversity, a common point always predominates, according to sources from Viajes El Corte Inglés: "The motivation of the Barcelonan client is to discover new realities." Within the variety, that is the leitmotif: to discover.
Furthermore, Barcelonan travelers often share another trait: they are cautious. "When something happens, like the war in the Middle East, it stops consumption dead in its tracks. At the same time, it then recovers quickly." This trait also extends to anticipation: "Our clients from Barcelona always take advantage of early booking. It's a cultural thing. It's different for clients from the center or the south; they are totally different markets," they detail from Viajes El Corte Inglés.
This travel impulse comes from afar, as the Barcelonan market "has been one of the most pioneering in Europe, along with the French and Germans," adds Serra: "We have always been pioneers in opening new routes." And these routes, where do they go? "We started traveling in the 80s, especially to North Africa, and that was our first international opening. All of this has been expanding, reaching all over the world," Serra emphasizes.
Now, although the Barcelona traveler is transversal and allows space for all preferences, one stands out: "Asia is the destination for Barcelona residents," sources from the sector point out. At the forefront is Japan, accompanied by other countries such as Thailand, China, Vietnam, and even New Zealand. In a year marked by the consequences of the conflict in the Middle East, destinations in South America are gaining strength, as well as in Europe and even within Spain. Meanwhile, Egypt remains one of the most desired destinations, on the other side of the Mediterranean, and others emerge following trends, such as those pointing to places like Patagonia, West Africa, and Northern Europe.
For many Barcelona residents, "traveling has become almost a biological necessity; if they don't do it, something is missing"But international destinations are not the only ones that attract residents. In Catalonia, of the 30 million trips undertaken in 2025, nearly half stayed within Catalonia itself, and almost eight million were within Spain. Nearly six million went beyond the borders, according to Idescat based on the INE's Resident Tourism Survey. In addition,raised the budget allocated to their trips:in the last quarter of 2025, the average expenditure of Catalans on travel was 386 euros per person (8% more than the previous year), with a daily expenditure of 111 euros. In total, the expenditure of Catalans on travel grew by 6.8%, and the average expenditure per person increased by 6.3%.
As Serra highlights, this increase in budget does not necessarily imply that the traveler has high purchasing power, but rather that "they want to invest part of their savings capacity in traveling." Thus, it is not that they have many resources, but that they make traveling a priority. In this sense, for many Barcelonians, "traveling has almost become a biological necessity; if they don't do it, something is missing."
But what does traveling bring to the traveler? "The trip is much more than seeing a monument or taking a plane and sleeping in another bed. You leave your usual habitat, and because of that, your mind works differently. You have totally different inputs," summarizes Serra. In line with this reality, the Barcelona traveler is increasingly looking for more authentic experiences. "Our traveler is increasingly demanding, but not demanding in terms of the quality of the trip, but demanding that things happen. They don't want to be secondary actors looking at a painting; they want to be part of it."
"We are catalysts for the planet's balance; when a citizen gets to know another culture, they become more sensitive, more tolerant, they become creators of synergies and relationships"This attraction to authenticity is reflected in searches on online platforms, and in agencies, which adapt to new trends and needs. "When we design trips, we think about enriching products, with new experiences," says Serra. This authenticity translates intomore experiential trips, in preferences that have caused changes in the sector that even reach the format of agency premises—including those of Viajes El Corte Inglés, which is merging points of sale to create larger and more experiential spaces—.
The changes in the way Barcelonans travel are not only marked by these trends, but also by technology, and the irruption of AI. So much so that more than a third of travelers already use it to plan their trips, according to Booking. In this context, agencies also adapt: "It is a new evolution. Some already predicted the end of agencies with the arrival of the Internet, but every year it continues to grow," they defend from Viajes El Corte Inglés.
Technology, moreover, makes such a quantity of information available to the traveler that it is difficult to discriminate it and keep what best suits their interests, in a diverse world full of destinations and cultures to discover. Delving into that diversity is in itself one of the virtues of traveling, as Serra points out: "I always say that we are catalysts for the balance of the planet. In the end, when a citizen from here travels to the other side of the world and gets to know another culture, they become more sensitive, more tolerant, they become a creator of synergies and relationships," Serra emphasizes. Thus, while "breaking mental taboos," the traveler becomes a bridge, while also acting as an ambassador for their own city.