Sea, water, festivals and traditions: the main attractions of Destination Barcelona in August

The Barcelona Tourism Observatory: city and region publishes a new Destination Barcelona tourism activity forecast report (August 2024 edition).

The main conclusions of this new edition of the report are presented below:

• Air capacity in Barcelona in August is estimated to register 5.9 million seats (9.3% YoY)
• 80 cruise ships are expected to arrive at Barcelona Port this month, slightly ahead of August 2023.
• The cultural and leisure agenda in the destination will be highlighted by the start of the 2024 America’s Cup (22/08). In terms of festivals and traditions, a large number of major summer festivals will be held, including the Festa Major de Gràcia in Barcelona (15/08-21/08), the Festa Major de Sant Bartomeu in Sitges (23/08-24/08) and the Festa Major de Vilafranca and Diada de Sant Fèlix (29/08-02/09).
• The congress and trade fair calendar will be practically interrupted until September.
• In August, almost all the source markets included in the report have summer holidays: Spain, France, Italy, Belgium, the Netherlands, Germany, the United Kingdom, the United States, Canada, Japan, South Korea, etc.
• In the last month, Google searches for Destination Barcelona have registered higher levels to in 2023. The most popular online search terms keep being Sagrada Familia, in Barcelona city, and some coastal destinations, such as Sitges, Castelldefels, Garraf, and Cubelles, in Destination Barcelona. Among the most growing searches, we find concepts related to water such as beaches and aquatic parks.
• In the last month, Destination Barcelona has ranked 7th in accommodation searches and 8th in flights in the online positioning ranking of international destinations.
• Hotel bookings made during the last month were led by the domestic market and bookings from the USA were the most frequent international bookings in Barcelona city, those from France, in Barcelona region. 6 out of 10 bookings were for travelling as a couple.
• Bookings for stays in August are slightly behind of last year bookings for the same period in both Barcelona city and Barcelona region.
• In comparison with other European destinations, Barcelona city has a similar level of hotel bookings to Amsterdam, while Barcelona region is well below.

More information: Destination Barcelona Tourism Activity Forecast (2024-VIII)