The Meetings industry in Barcelona regained the activity levels of 2007, just before the financial crisis.
According to figures from Turisme de Barcelona revealed today at the assembly of its Barcelona Convention Bureau, the number of professional meetings held last year in the Catalan capital was up 15.1% over the 2009 figures.
There was also a sharp increase in the number of delegates who attended meetings in Barcelona, up 7.1% over last year.
In 2010, Barcelona hosted 2,138 meetings and 616,833 delegates.
The increase in the number of meetings was mainly the result of the spike in the sub-segment of conventions and incentives, which represented 18.8% of the overall number of meetings.
Conventions and incentives are the activity that felt the impact of the worldwide crisis most sharply. Now, with the economic recovery being experienced in a number of countries, they have regained the ground they had lost during the past two years.
Indeed, in 2010 there was a sharp increase of 39.5% in the number of delegates attending conventions and incentives, which represent the corporate activity of businesses.
This increase was reflected in the overall number of delegates in the city which once again attained levels of over 600,000 people. The recovery of the corporate segment made up for the slow down in the number of congress delegates (-11.7%).
