• The most highly rated aspects of the Destination Barcelona municipalities in 2023 were the character and kidness of people (8.57), the public transport (8.42), and the gastronomy (8.34).
• On average, the municipalities received an overall score of 8.59 out of 10. International tourists (8.68) and those who travelled because of holidays or leisure reasons (8.67) gave them the best overall rating.
• The Online Reputation Index (iRON®) scored 8.56 in Destination Barcelona. Attractions achieved online ratings close to excellent.
• 70.8% of Barcelona city residents believed that tourism is rather beneficial for the city, while in Barcelona region, 83.8% believed its impact on the catalan society is very positive or positive.
• The number of tourism businesses increased by +3.1% year-on-yearand accounted for 15.2% of the total business fabric of Destination Barcelona.
• The number of companies and services certified in Biosphere Responsible Tourism stood at 986, +12.2% above the previous year.
• Destination Barcelona hosted 1,945 meetings and 582,198 delegates in 2023 and around eighty events were held at Fira de Barcelona, with 1.4 million attendees.

The OTB has released the third capsule of the 2023 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.

Tourist evaluation

The tourists' general evaluation of Destination Barcelona municipalities reached a score of 8.59 out of 10 in 2023, so that it remained fairly stable compared to the previous year (-0.03 points). In Barcelona city, which had the highest score, the overall rating was 8.70, while in Barcelona region, 8.72.

Most of the aspects that were valued in the Destination were rated over 8. The most valued aspects were the character and kindness of the local people (8.57), the public transport (8.42), and the gastronomy (8.34). On the other hand, the aspect with a lower score kept being the noise (7.13).

In Barcelona city, the best-considered attributes were the architecture (9.28), the entertainment (9.03), which experienced the most remarkable growth of all the aspects analised (+0.39 points year-on-year), and the culture (8.60). The noise (6.69), and the general cleanliness (7.60) were the least valued aspects.

In Barcelona region, the character and kindness of people (8.72) remained in the first position, followed by public safety (8.64), and the accommodation (8.52). However, the least valued aspects were the parking supply (7.04) and sustainability (7.76).

International tourists were those who gave the best overall rating to the municipalities of the Destination (8.68), while if the ratings are analysed according to reason of travel, those travelling because of holidays or leisure reasons were those who gave the highest ratings (8.67).

Online reputation

The tourism activity in Destination Barcelona obtained an online reputation index (iRON®) of 8.56 out of 10. By geographical area, Barcelona city received an overall rating of 8.64 and Barcelona region, 8.27. In both cases, the results improved compared to the 2018 edition, the last time the study was carried out for both geographical areas at the same time: in Barcelona city, the score increased +0.22 points, and in Barcelona region, +0.09 points.

By area, in 2023, accommodation and restaurants obtained very similar scores (8.17 and 8.18, respectively), while attractions stood out with a score close to 9.

Location, in the case of accommodation, and food, in the case of restaurants, were the highest rated aspects of those services, while price was the lowest rated in both cases.

On the other hand, the most highly rated attractions were those related to sport/active tourism, cultural and natural attractions, all with scores equal to or higher than 9.

Citizen opinion

In Barcelona city, both the percentage of residents who believed that tourism is rather beneficial for the municipality and the percentage of residents who believed just the opposite increased with respect to the previous year, to 70.8% in the former case (+4.0pp) and 23.0% in the latter (+5.7pp). This is due to a reduction in residents' indifference to this issue, which in previous years exceeded 10%.

In Barcelona region, on the other hand, 8 out of 10 residents considered the impact of tourism on Catalan society as a whole is positive or very positive, while only 1 out of 10 considered it to be negative or very negative.

As to whether the destination should continue to attract more tourists, only a third of Barcelona city's residents were in favour, while in Barcelona region the proportion was almost half.

Economic activity and job market

The weight of tourism on the economic activity continued to be higher in Barcelona city (15.7% in number of companies and 13.1% in employment) than in Barcelona region (14.8% in number of companies and 10.5% in employment).

Both, the number of companies in tourism and the employees' increased year-on-year in Destination Barcelona (+3.5% and +6.3%, respectively). In the latter case, in Barcelona city recorded a higher increase in employment (+8.1%) than in Barcelona region (+4.7%), which experienced a lower impact on tourist occupancy during the pandemic.

After some years of growth in the hiring in the tourism activity core, and with the entry into force of the new hiring regulations in 2022, which lead to an increase in permanent contracts, in 2023 hiring experienced a downward trend. In this sense, temporary contracts decreased the most year-on-year (-24.9%), while permanent contracts fell by a smaller proportion (-4.9%).

On the other hand, registered unemployment decreased by -1.4% year-on-year.

Sustainability

One more year, this report includes the results of several indicators related to tourism sustainability in Destination Barcelona, which are part of the OTB's Sustainable Tourism Indicators System (SITS-OTB). These indicators respond to 3 areas of sustainability (environmental, socio-cultural and economic) and covers various issues such as: pollution, mobility, citizen satisfaction, public safety, the economic impact of tourism and the job market. Due to the cross-cutting nature of the issues that affect the sustainability of tourism activity, some of these indicators have already appeared in other chapters of this report. The analysis of the evolution of the latest results published in this capsule will be available from next month, in the results section of the OTB Sustainability webpage.

As for sustainability certifications, in 2023, 986 companies and services were certified in Biosphere Responsible Tourism, which means a 12.2%-year-on-year growth. By typology, accommodation companies gathered 1 out of 3 certificates.

Moreover, 6 destinations mantained their certification in Biosphere Responsible Tourism and another 54 were distinguished (6 over the previous year). Osona was the region with more distinctions (11), followed by Anoia (9), Baix Llobregat (8), and Vallès Oriental (7).

Meetings tourism and fair trade activity

In 2023, 1,945 meetings were registered in Destination Barcelona, which meant not only a year-on-year growth (+18.7% Var. 23/22), but also on prepandemic levels (+12.2% Var. 23/19).

Most of the events were held in the second and the last quarter, accounting for 6 aout of each 10 meetings throughout the year.

On the other side, the increase in the number of assistants, 582.198, was more limited (+5.2% Var. 23/22), and still below pre-pandemic figures (-12.4% Var. 23/19). This was mainly due to the restrictions still present in the Asian markets during the first months of the year, which mainly affected events in the first quarter, such as the Mobile World Congress. Telecommunications/technology events were the most numerous (12.8%), followed by the pharmaceutical (11.9%) and the medical ones (10.6%).

At Fira de Barcelona, 79 face-to-face events were organised, with 16,820 direct exhibitors and 1.4 million visitors. The quarters with the most face-to-face events were the first and fourth quarter, which alone welcomed more than one million people. Health and wellness fairs (21.5%) were the most frequent.

More information: Barcelona torusim activity report 2023 - Capsule 3