The Barcelona Tourism Observatory presents the full report on Tourism Activity in Barcelona 2023, a report which reflects the recovery in tourism activity throughout the year, after the pandemic years.

This report includes 3 new chapters to the previously released capsules: International positioning, Culture and leisure, and General information about Barcelona. Other contents have been also updated with definitive data: Tourism demand, Airport and Tourists' origin.

The following is an explanation of the highlights of the last chapters of the 2023 report:

International positioning

In 2023, Barcelona ranked 7^th in the ranking of total overnight stays in European cities, behind cities such as London, Istanbul, Berlin, Rome and Amsterdam, but just above Madrid, which ranked 8^th. Although Barcelona dropped one position from the previous year, it ranked the same place as in 2019.

In the ranking of cruise passengers movements in the Mediterranean, the Port of Barcelona achieved, for the second 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 the area of meetings tourism, Destination Barcelona slightly lowered its position compared to the previous year, obtaining 5^th place both in number of meetings and number of delegates in the ICCA ranking and 9^th position in the UIA ranking, in number of meetings.

Finally, although Barcelona achieved a better score in the GDS index year-on-year (from 73.1% in 2022, to 74.5% in 2023), in the category of metropolis cities, its positioning was maintained, achieving 7^th place in this ranking once again.

Culture and leisure

The year-on-year increase in tourism activity led to a growth of around 20% of visitors to cultural, nature and leisure facilities.

85% of the most visited places in Destination Barcelona in 2023 are located in Barcelona city, with the Basilica of the Sagrada Familia being the most visited in this geographical area (4.7M visitors), followed by Park Güell (4.6M) and the Montjuïc cable car (2.M). In Barcelona region, the areas that received the most people were the shopping centers of La Roca Village (5.4 million) and Viladecans The Style Outlets (3.7M) and the Monastery of Montserrat (2.2M).

Of all the facilities monitored, by type of facility, places of architectural interest experienced the highest year-on-year growth (+24.0%), followed by exhibition centers (+21.9%) and wine tourism sites (+19.9%).

By geographical area, facilities in Barcelona city, which lost the most visitors during the pandemic, recorded the highest year-on-year increase, +21.5%, while visitors to facilities in the Barcelona region grew by +16.5%.

For the first time, this chapter of the Barcelona Tourism Activity Report includes data on attendees at the main festivals in Barcelona city. In 2023, the festivals that attracted the most people to the city were the Barcelona Christmas Festival, the Primavera Sound, the Llum BCN Festival, the Sonar and the Loop Festival.

Finally, in the field of sporting events, the available data show an overall growth in spectators compared to the previous year, over +70%, mainly thanks to the increase in the number of people attending soccer matches, which went from 2.6 million to 4.6 million in just one year.

General information about Barcelona

At the beginning of 2023, the census population in Barcelona city was 1.66M people, which means a slight increase over the previous year, and the recovery of the values of the beginning of 2021. The district with the highest population and density of inhabitants per square kilometre, 36,000 inhab./km², is the Eixample.

In the province of Barcelona as a whole, a total of 5.80M inhabitants were recorded, over the previous year and 2021. 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, 2023 was less warm than in 2022, but in general, also drier than the previous year, which must be framed within a context of the beginning of a drought situation in Catalonia.

More information:

New key figures viewer and Barcelona Tourism Activity Report 2023