Barcelona has recently won the candidature to host the largest annual mobile phone event in the world -the 3GSM World Congress. The first Barcelona 3GSM World Congress will be held February 13-16, 2006.

Some 34,000 people attended the Cannes event in 2005, but our research suggests that in Barcelona the figure could rise to 41,200 attendees plus spouses. Taking into account the general growth in this sector and the positive reaction from exhibitors during site visits to the change in venue, we think we might even exceed this number and w calculate the exhibitors will rise from 670 to 800 this year. In terms of economic impact, the Exhibition moves some 100 m €s and Barcelona’s hotels and restaurants will certainly notice the effect.

Well, we have a rolling contract, but the idea is to stay here as long as our exhibitors and clients enjoy it.

Corporate parties will be going on all over the city and some of them are really big splashes. But in a more general sense, participants will be keeping the city’s restaurants busy throughout the event. We’ll be recommending certain areas in the city to make for, say the Olympic Port, one night and another zone on another night. We’ve got a special deal with the Restaurants Guild meaning our participants will get preferential treatment in terms of table reservations or a complementary glass of Cava.

The congress, conventions and incentive travel sectors in Barcelona recorded their best ever year in terms of delegate numbers last year, with a rise of 26% to stand at 360,335.

These excellent results came off the back of strong growth in the corporate meetings and product presentations markets, which grew 41,6% to stand at 166,627 people. Meanwhile the congress market also improved to stand at 193,708 delegates, a 15% rise on 2003’s results.

Corporate meetings fared particularly well last year, especially due to four international car presentations and a huge meeting by Herbalife, with 20,000 participants. Last year’s Forum Barcelona had a considerable impact on the congress sector’s results bringing in 60,000 delegates from 50 congresses.

Overall the number of overnights rose by almost 25% and the number of meetings totalled 1,146, a rise of 0.6% on 2003.

The vice-president of Turisme de Barcelona, Jordi Portabella, says these excellent results in congresses and conventions shows "the consolidation of Barcelona’s position as a business travel and meetings city, in a year that Barcelona is also holding the EIBTM trade fair, a world leader in the meetings sector, and just a year from Barcelona’s hosting of 3GSM World Congress, the most important trade fair for the mobile telephone sector.”

Last year some 69% of all meetings and 77.5% of delegates were from outside Spain, making 2004 the most international year for the corporate and congress sectors in Barcelona.

Convention centres saw a rise of five points in the number of meetings held in these venues. A third of all congresses in Barcelona last year came from the medical and healthcare sectors, while in the corporate market the pharmaceuticals sector accounted for most events.

The average length of meetings remained similar to 2003, although there was an increase of 3% in the number of congresses lasting more than five days. The Forum brought about a rise in the average number of delegates per congress, but the trend towards bigger meetings was also seen in the corporate sector, with a notable increase in events for 500-999 participants in both cases. The distribution of the meetings according to their size is now similar to that of 2000, one of Barcelona’s most successful years for corporate and congress events.

Interestingly, Barcelona held two Chinese conventions last year, highlighting an important new market for Barcelona.

The economic impact of the meetings sector in Barcelona rose by 21.4%, with the corporate and incentives increasing by 29.2% and congresses up by 5.7%. Barcelona Convention Bureau again played a major role in capturing congresses; the overall contribution of BCB was 8.29% to the total number of meetings and 22.73% to the total number of participants.

Importantly, last year BCB confirmed 97 future meetings, with a total of 129,902 delegates, 519,070 overnights and a total impact of 233.1 million Euro.

www.barcelonaturisme.com