Barcelona City Council has endowed the Barcelona MICE Destination Support Programme with €3m. The programme is designed to both boost recruitment and promote loyalty of congresses and events in the city and was created in order to help reactivate the city’s economy and launch new support measures for the tourism meetings sector. City officials explained the new support measures on the final day of IBTM World exhibition in Barcelona, 2 December.
Barcelona MICE Destination Support Programme will be managed by the Barcelona Convention Bureau with the support of a number of stakeholders involved, notably Fira de Barcelona and Barcelona de Serveis Municipals (B: SM).
The Barcelona Convention Bureau (BCB) is a division of Turisme de Barcelona that promotes the city as a destination for congresses, meetings and incentive trips.
The objective of the programme is to support key congresses and events for Barcelona that consider continuity in the city in future editions and that are aligned with strategic economic sectors in the city. The programme will provide support to events that are identified as key to the future of technological development, cultural impact and identity, as well as those that allow establishing synergies with Barcelona’s economic structures.
The programme will be identifying events linked to priority sectors: digital, creative industries, local economy, industry 4.0, life sciences, green and circular economy, commerce, logistics, visitor economy, and talent as well as those that may be considered of special interest by the city.
A Technical Committee will assess the proposals and will be made up of the BCB, the Turisme de Barcelona Consortium, the Tourism and City Promotion Directorates of the Barcelona City Council, Fira de Barcelona, B:SM and the Gremi d’Hotels de Barcelona.
Organisers should not that, to get on the programme, criteria such as the size of the event will be taken into account, with priority going to congresses that bring more than 500 people and that involve overnight stays in the city. Other considerations are the incorporation of sustainability and ethical criteria.
Preferential treatment will be given to the 2022 congresses the BCB has been in contact with, in order to reinforce the ‘Welcome back’ message and the importance of returning to face-to-face activity as a declaration of support towards congress organisers.
The support will take the form of covering certain expenses of events in certain areas and services that the Turisme de Barcelona Consortium will assume under the programme. The support committed to each congress or event may be carried out in different phases, either in the recruitment phase, during its promotion or at the time of the congress.
Help may also grow by incorporating more economic resources contributed by other public or private institution and the Turisme de Barcelona Consortium has said it will present proposals on how it can nurture the programme with private resources and mechanisms for public-private collaboration.
According to the ICCA city rankings Barcelona occupies fourth position in the world as an association conference organiser and the first as a non-capital city. Barcelona has been ranked in the Top 5 for 20 consecutive years for organising congresses.
And 2019 data from the BCB indicates that congress and convention tourism generates around €1.9bn annually in Barcelona.
