March 10: Barcelona Consorci de Turisme

By Kyla Blocker

“Thirty years ago, Barcelona was not a tourist destination,” says Anna Marquès, Strategic Projects and Alliances Director of Barcelona Consorci de Turisme, “now it is not a tourist destination – it is a city with tourism.” This sentiment framed today’s session about Barcelona Turisme’s efforts to rebrand the idea of tourism in Barcelona, both for tourists and local residents. 

Founded 32 years ago, Barcelona Turisme is a public/private collaboration consisting of three partners (city hall, the chamber of commerce, and the Barcelona Promotion Foundation) with a shared mission. Anna shared that the priorities of Barcelona Turisme are: 

  1. Promotion of culture and MICE (meetings, incentives, congresses, and events)
  2. Moving from the slogan “Visit Barcelona” to “This is Barcelona” (more on this in a moment!)
  3. Improving the experience of Barcelona, and
  4. The reputation of Barcelona and tourism in Barcelona. 

Anna shared some of the initiatives Barcelona Tursime is undertaking in order to achieve these goals. The first is that the agency has moved to a strategy of promoting the many cultural aspects of Barcelona in order to attract tourists who are coming to Barcelona for a specific reason. These cultural assets include museums, music halls and festivals, gastronomy, and the nice shops available. As part of this initiative, Barcelona Turisme is launching This is Barcelona in June, which will be a digital platform where users can input information about themselves and then receive a curated experience with suggestions of where to go and what to do based on their different profiles. This is an exciting moment for Barcelona Turisme to really highlight what makes Barcelona special and for tourists to understand the heart of the city. As someone who considers themselves a cultural tourist, I would love to see other major cities put together similar platforms! 

Anna hopes that locals will utilize the new platform as well.  Because the percentage of locals who believe tourism is good for the city has significantly declined in recent years, Barcelona Turisme has been working to redefine what tourism means not just to visitors but to the local residents as well. This has led to the Tourism Reputation plan, which is designed to help residents better understand how tourism can benefit the city. 

So much of the information on the internet about tourism in Barcelona skews negative, so it was refreshing to hear a more positive view as well as see an organization keep its finger on the pulse of the city and make efforts to improve the experience of tourism for all involved through promoting conscious tourism for a reason.