Barcelona is designing experiences that will make visitors want to plan longer stays

28 Nov Barcelona is designing experiences that will make visitors want to plan longer stays

Eduard Torres, President of Turisme de Barcelona, talks about how there is a general consensus that the city prefers to deliver unique experiences to quality visitors, who in a post-pandemic era will want to spend more time in one destination and get to know sites and features they may not have encountered on prior visits.

You became president of Turisme de Barcelona in November 2019, just four months before the start of the pandemic. Interestingly, you are an entrepreneur and founder of Grupo Duquesa, part of the hotel sector which has been one of the hardest hit by the pandemic. What would you like to share about your experience as president thus far?

When I took office we were in the midst of a very intense debate in the city because of the great success Barcelona had achieved over the 25 years following the Olympic games. Every year interest grew, more and more people were drawn to the city, and it flourished. This large success was due to Barcelona’s attractiveness, the hospitality of our citizens and our openness to visitors. We wanted to welcome the world and for them to get to know us. The debate was about if we wanted to maintain that trend, allowing the numbers to continue to increase. There were a lot of people who wanted to stay with the earlier successful model, but there were also other people in the city, represented by different political groups that were challenging that view. They felt that perhaps we should reduce the numbers and favor quality over quantity. While this vibrant and active debate was going on, the pandemic hit. This gave us the opportunity to have a much more relaxed debate because we no longer had the pressure of day-to-day business affairs. It also gave us a perspective on how valuable tourism really is. When the city was in lockdown, the streets lost their characteristic liveliness. It gave us time to calmly discuss the situation.

The outcome was that for the first time in Barcelona, there has been an agreement between all the political groups. We approved a strategic path for marketing Barcelona tourism going forward. There was a consensus that the goal was not to continue growing the number of visitors, because we are already at capacity, rather in alignment with digitalization and sustainability, we should aim for people to lengthen their stays. If previously the average stay was 2.7 nights, we need to strive to increase that ratio to seven nights. Of course, that is an ambitious challenge, but we all concurred that the best path forward was to target quality visitors that would stay for a longer period, and, in fact, we were delighted to have come to an agreement.

My personal feeling is that we still do not know which long-term effects or changes caused by the pandemic will remain once it is over. We know that people want to travel and socialize, so that makes us optimistic about the future of the industry, and Barcelona, because of everything we discussed, is very well positioned for the future. What we know for sure is that there are changes that will stay and evolve. People are going to plan longer trips, and they are going to get more involved and interact more at their destinations.

What action plans are there to implement this strategy?

It is easier said than done. How can we get visitors to stay longer? I see a couple of clear possibilities. The first is that we are very strong in MICE. We host some of the most popular global events, such as the MWC Barcelona, known widely as the Mobile World Congress. This year we will also welcome ISE, Integrated Systems Europe, the world’s largest AV and systems integration show. Medical congresses are another forte of ours. For many years, we have been holding the oncology, cardiology, and respiratory conventions, receiving a multitude of delegates. We need to make an effort to capitalize on these large events by strategically establishing and building deeper relationships with the attendees. The MWC is a perfect example. It has been running for 16 years in Barcelona and is closely linked to the startup industry that is booming here in Barcelona. This longstanding event has helped profoundly in developing the entrepreneurial atmosphere in the city.

The second opportunity for improvement is to showcase more of what is happening, not only in the city but also in the greater Barcelona area. Not everyone knows that there are ski resorts just a hour and a half away from the city center. You can go skiing in the morning and go to the beach in the afternoon. There is such a wide variety of things to do within extremely short distances. We need to make people more aware of our culture and gastronomy and the treasures that can be found in the surrounding areas. Sixty percent of visitors are repeat visitors. We need to show them new things, especially if we want them to stay longer. This message can be effectively transmitted through digital tools. Spain is in a great position as it is about to receive a large amount of next generation programs and funds, and we intend to work with the local government as well as with the Generalitat de Catalunya and the central government to implement these tools to be up to par with the kind of person who is visiting us and the experiences we are offering them.

Can you tell us a bit more about the promotional efforts and the focus of the past few years? What kind of promotions are you doing for 2022?

Currently, the promotional activities for the past two years have been quite cautious and perhaps tentative. There is no sense in creating a lot of new publicity if new mobility restrictions may be imposed at any given moment. We have focused mainly on the long term. There has been much attention paid to where restriction-free travel was resuming. In the past two years, we only experienced this for six months, from July to November 2021. At the moment, there is some mobility, but currently there is also a large wave of cases that is making things a bit unpredictable.

Having said that, it is true that we only had this mobility inside Spain and in those six months of stability, mobility was mostly contained to Europe. There were no visitors from Asia, and our American visitors only began to pick up in September and October of last year. Therefore, promotional activity was destined only for the markets that were able to come here. Of course, as we head into the future, we will begin to focus again on our international markets, and we will include them in our challenge to make visitors stay longer. In the meantime, we have been working with Vueling, the airline here in Barcelona, as well as with Renfe, our railway, to run domestic promotions. Our focus has mainly been here, as well as on France, Italy, and the European countries that were able to move freely.

The Barcelona brand’s biggest influence and perhaps its biggest asset was built upon the city’s successful Olympic games. Do you think Barcelona needs something new to relaunch its global image and appeal? What is the health of the Barcelona brand today, and in your opinion, what should change?

The basis of the success of Barcelona is a combination of different features, such as the climate, the lifestyle, gastronomy, and architecture, and all of them are related to our culture. People enjoy themselves and have a wonderful experience here. This is not going to change. It has been this way for a very long time and it will continue to be a remarkable place and an exquisite destination. As I mentioned earlier, we need to broaden the spectrum of what we are promoting to our repeat visitors. The state of our brand is in good health.

It is true that we historically did quite well attracting international guests, and the mobility restrictions affected those numbers greatly. However, as mobility was restored, the numbers grew. From September to October, there was a turnover of about 65 percent compared to what we had in 2019, which is extremely positive. The outlook for next year in the MICE and leisure sectors is promising. Of course, this is always uncertain because of the evolution of the pandemic, but we are optimistic.

Regarding things that should change, they are already changing. The workforce in Barcelona comprises topnotch professionals. Again, our gastronomy, science, entrepreneurship, and everything that makes us great needs to be better displayed to our visitors. Barcelona is much more than just its iconic places such as Sagrada Familia, the Gothic Square, and Eixample. The psychology of Barcelonans also involves an ebb and flow dynamic. Many events were held in Barcelona in recent years, so now the mindset here needs to be reignited, and in fact, it has already begun.

Can you give us an insight into how things went during these past Christmas holidays amid the pandemic?

There were a lot of actions prepared for the season. As I mentioned, we had a 65 percent turnover from September to October. The holidays were looking extremely positive, but then we had new restrictions imposed because of the Omicron variant. From 65 percent, we went down to a 40 percent turnover compared to 2019. Although, again, these ups and downs are entirely related to the pandemic. Once things even out, we will recover quickly. We are looking forward to a 2022 where we expect that throughout the year we will jump from the 40 percent turnover in 2021 to 70 percent. The first quarter will probably be a little more difficult, but we are confident because of the response we experienced in the period where there were no restrictions. The internet searches made by people interested in coming to Barcelona were really off the charts.

Are you attracting many digital nomads?

Indeed. In fact, we have a specific program dedicated to this phenomenon called Workation, which we developed in Barcelona Turisme, and it was very successful. We also think that people will want to have a different lifestyle in which they stay longer in places and have a more relaxed and maybe mindful experience and relationship with the place where they are visiting. Fortunately, this is well aligned with our goals of wanting people to stay here longer and get to know us better.

Medical tourism, which incidentally, I would prefer the term health and wellness tourism, or investing in oneself, going to a place, enjoying local gastronomy, visiting places, thinking and maybe connecting with themselves. This is part of the offering that we are going to have to do in the future, and I am quite convinced of that. Barcelona is in an ideal place to do it. We have the hotels, the staff, the destinations, and this will all come together perfectly to achieve our goal.