The Barcelona Destination improves its position in meetings tourism and reaches 1st place in number of delegates in the ICCA ranking

The OTB has released the fourth capsule of the 2024 Barcelona Tourism Activity Report with information on the tourist evaluation, online reputation, citizen opinion, economic activity, job market, sustainability, meetings tourism and trade fair activity in Destination Barcelona.

As usual, this report provides data about the three geographical levels that the OTB covers: Barcelona city, Barcelona region, and Destination Barcelona.

 

International positioning

In 2024, Barcelona ranked 7^th in the ranking of total overnight stays among European cities, behind cities such as London, Istanbul, Berlin, Rome and Amsterdam, but just above Madrid, which ranked 8^th. Its position remained unchanged from the previous year.

In the ranking of cruise passenger’s movements in the Mediterranean, the Port of Barcelona achieved, for the third consecutive year after the pandemic, the 1^st place. On the other hand, Barcelona Airport also maintained its position in the ranking of movement of passengers in Europe’s airports, 7^th, behind London Heathrow, Istanbul, Paris Charles de Gaulle, Amsterdam, Madrid and Frankfurt.

In terms of sustainability, Barcelona achieved a higher score than the year before in the GDS Index (rising from 74,5% in 2023 to 75,5% in 2024), in the category of metropolis cities. However, it retained the 7^th in the ranking, the same position it has held for the last two years.

In the area of meetings tourism, Destination Barcelona improved its position compared to the previous year, obtaining 4^th place in number of meetings and 1^st place number of delegates in the ICCA ranking and 4^th position in the UIA ranking, in number of meetings.

In the Euromonitor ranking, which evaluates factors such as tourism, sustainability and economic performance, Barcelona ranked 10^th, behind cities such as Paris, Madrid, Tokyo, Rome or Milano.

Finally, Barcelona was recognised as a leading luxury city, obtaining the 2^nd place in the Virtuoso ranking and improving its position from the previous year.

 

Culture and leisure

The year-on-year increase in tourism activity led to a growth of around 4% of visitors to cultural, nature and leisure facilities.

75% of the most visited places in Destination Barcelona in 2024 are located in Barcelona city, with the Basilica of the Sagrada Familia being the most visited in this geographical area (4.9M visitors), followed by Park Güell (4.6M) and the Montjuïc cable car (2.1M). In Barcelona region, the areas that received the most people were the shopping centres of La Roca Village (5.7 million) and Viladecans The Style Outlets (4,5M) and the Monastery of Montserrat (2.4M).

Of all the facilities monitored, by type of facility, leisure sites experienced the highest year-on-year growth (+11,3%), followed by exhibition centers (+6,6%) and wine tourism sites (+6,5%).

By geographical area, facilities in Barcelona city, recorded the lightly year-on-year increase, +1,4%, while visitors to facilities in the Barcelona region grew by +10,7%.

Regarding attendance for the main festivals in 2024, the events that attracted the most people to the city were the Barcelona Christmas Festival, Primavera Sound, the Llum BCN Festival, the Manga Fair, the Grec Festival, and Sónar.

Finally, in the field of sporting events, the available data show a decrease in the number of spectators compared to the previous year, mainly due to the drop in attendance at football matches, which fell from 3.5M to 1.5M in just one year.

 

General information about Barcelona

At the beginning of 2024, the census population in Barcelona city was 1.7M people, which means a slight increase over the previous year. The district with the highest population and density of inhabitants per square kilometre, 36.795 inhab./km², is the Eixample.

In the province of Barcelona as a whole, a total of 5.87M inhabitants were recorded, over the previous year. Taking Barcelonès out of the equation, the most populated counties are those closest to Barcelona: Vallès Occidental, Baix Llobregat and Maresme.

As far as meteorology is concerned, 2024 was less warm than in 2023. Nevertheless, 2024 showed a notable change in rainfall patterns: precipitation was more abundant and regular, especially during spring and autumn, thus breaking a long period of persistent drought that had affected much of Catalonia since 2021.

 

 

Més informació: 

Key figures viewer and 4^th chapter of the Tourism Activity Report 2024