The meeting, organised by the Catalan Tourist Board (ACT) and the Catalunya Convention Bureau, brought together dozens of companies as a pole of attraction for business tourism and conferences in the region.

 October 11, 2022.

PortAventura Business & Events hosted the latest edition of Meet Catalunya, an international gathering where associations, companies, and organisations exchange their best qualities to attract tourism for meetings and events. The PortAventura World Convention Centre was the venue for this meeting, which has proved to be a great success in terms of attendance, bringing together more than 60 leading tour operators from 14 European countries, which led to over 1,500 commercial appointments between 90 companies and organisations specialising in the Catalan tourism sector.

Until July of this year, MICE tourism generated spending of 850 million euros in Catalonia, which represents a recovery of 81% compared to 2019. That year, conference tourism attracted more than 1.6 million foreign tourists who travelled for work, business, or to attend exhibitions and conferences, generating a total outlay of 1.7 billion euros in the region: a segment that represented 7.5% of all Catalan tourist activity.

Catalonia is one of the best-situated regions internationally given its great potential for the development of meeting and conference tourism. The region is the international benchmark destination for MICE tourism, since it has facilities such as the PortAventura World Convention Centre, which allows it to host large gatherings, and extensive experience in organising all kinds of events. The ranking of the city of Barcelona, which for more than twenty consecutive years has been among the top 5 cities for organising conferences according to the ICCA, positions Catalonia as the best destination to hold this type of meetings and tourist gatherings.

The director of PortAventura Business & Events, Malin Nilsson, explained that „it has been a real source of pride to have hosted such an important event for our sector. The PortAventura World Convention Centre is the ideal place to hold business events of the magnitude of Meet Catalunya, which has brought together dozens of attendees from all over Europe in an open-plan and versatile space that can be adapted depending on the needs of each client”.