New Destination Barcelona Tourism Marketing Strategy

30-10-2018 | Turisme de Barcelona

Barcelona has launched the process of formulating and developing the destination Barcelona tourism marketing strategy which is intended to update the marketing plan in line with the new reality and the new challenges faced by the tourism industry. The momentum for this new strategy comes from the collaboration between Barcelona City Council and the Chamber of Commerce, as members of the Turisme de Barcelona Consortium, and it is supported by Barcelona Provincial Council.

The strategy is based on five clearly-identified objectives. The first is ensuring the sustainability of the destination. At the same time, it is essential to encourage tourism to be competitive while ensuring the maximum social return. To achieve this the plan will stress the importance of analysing source markets in order to focus on segments, activities and practices which generate value. The attractions, products and services on offer must be adapted in accordance with the new objectives. The third objective of the plan is to promote business cooperation by fostering those activities, products and services which help ensure that effect of tourism is increased significantly in strategic economic sectors. The connection between the visitor's budget and reinforcing other economic activities with added value is considered key, such as in the case of business tourism. Finally, the marketing strategy is focused on promoting management of the Destination and including all public and private agents projecting the image of the city.

At the presentation event, Turisme de Barcelona's managing director, Joan Torrella, gave a brief chronological overview of the city's tourism development, recalling that "Barcelona and tourism are inseparable". Torrella considers that "the challenge is no longer managing tourism in the city, but managing the city with tourism. We cannot continue to think about promotion separately from management, we must sit down and work together", he concluded.

The process for developing and applying the Tourism Marketing Strategy will be divided into four phases: diagnosis, positioning of the destination, operating plan and implementation, and it is set to be fully operational in the first half of 2019.