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On Monday, the 'World Travel Market' (WTM) opened in London and Catalonia is participating with a 300 m² exhibition stand promoting a variety of its tourist destinations and highlighting its uniqueness with areas as diverse as the city of Barcelona, the Costa Brava and the Penedès wine region. The WTM is highly important in the tourism and travel industry, and represents a crucial opportunity for business networking and attractive investment. Catalonia’s participation strengthens its growing importance as a holiday destination for British tourists, who have increased by 4% and represent revenue of €1 billion in the first 10 months of 2014, the second largest after the French. Through the event, Catalan companies will mix with 5,000 other organizations from 200 countries, with an estimated 50,000 professionals from the industry participating.

The 18^th Edition of the Barcelona Meeting Point will take place between 29 October and 2 November in Fira de Barcelona's Montjuic venue. The trade fair is a real estate exhibition that brings together buyers and sellers to network and learn about the latest industry trends. This year there will be 265 participating companies from 23 countries. According to the show’s President, Enric Lacalle, it will be the first edition to open in a recovering housing sector, after 6 years of crisis and setbacks. The real estate market is strengthening; there was a 36.6% increase in the acquisition of houses by foreigners in 2013 and a 12.5% rise in housing sales throughout Spain. In addition, real estate investment in Barcelona is expected to exceed €1.6 billion in 2014, 30% more than last year. In fact, 21 international investment funds will participate in the trade fair. The show will also include a series of talks and presentations, and offer financing options for property purchase.

Figures released by the Barcelona Chamber of Commerce on Monday showed that the economy of Catalonia is set to grow by 1.6% in 2014 and 2.1% in 2015. The Chamber also predicted that by 2015, there will be a 2% rise in Spain’s GDP and 1.4% in that of the Eurozone countries average. According to the President of the Chamber, Miquel Valls, the recovery of Catalan and Spanish economies is "solid", but he stressed that the "austerity in wages" must be maintained. This report comes after the success of all Catalan banks passing the stress tests issued by the European Banking Authority and the European Central Bank, which 25 banks across Europe failed. Related economic news is that the unemployment figures released for third quarter of 2014 set Catalonia’s rate at 19.1% and Spain’s at 23.67%.

The factory that the Japanese car multinational has in Barcelona will be working 24 hours a day and 7 days a week for the first time in its 30 years of existence in order to produce the Pulsar saloon car and the NV200 van. In addition, it will hire 686 new temporary workers to deal with this production increase. As from the 20^th of October, Nissan will hire 86 new staff that will strengthen the current night shift on week days, which will be covered by 500 workers in total. Furthermore in early January, 600 additional staff will be hired to work on the weekends until later March. Nissan decided to allocate the production of its Pulsar saloon car to Barcelona in February 2013, after the company and trade unions reached an agreement to improve competitiveness. Furthermore, in Barcelona in May 2014, it started to assemble its first electric van model.

Barcelona is the 4^th most visited city in Europe and the 16^th in the world, welcoming 8 million tourists each year. It is acknowledged to be Spain's industrial hub where international trade fairs and conferences are being held. In addition, it is one of the top destinations among Erasmus students and the main cruise ship harbour in Europe. However, thanks to cheap airlines, Barcelona has also developed a reputation for low-cost tourism that often focuses on holidays of beach, booze and partying. On the one hand, this shows the young and fun atmosphere of the city and contributes significantly to the economy. On the other hand, according to locals, the so-called ''drunken tourism'' tarnishes Barcelona's reputation and has negative impacts. The City Council aims to control this kind of tourism and is currently attempting to introduce stricter regulations for holiday rent apartments. It has already banned land-based bar crawls around the city and wants to ensure the legality of alcohol-based boat trips as it does not have control over the city's waters.  

Barcelona-headquartered Ficosa International S.A and Japan-based Panasonic Corporation signed an investment agreement on Tuesday to form a capital and business alliance through a €250 million operation. According to the official press release by Ficosa, as part of the capital alliance, Panasonic will take a 49% stake in the Catalan company. Ficosa is a company that specializes in automobile components, founded in 1949 in Barcelona, where the headquarters remain. It grew at a phenomenal rate and now has around 8,000 employees in 18 countries around the globe, with net sales of €925 million as of December 2013. It is best known for its gear-boxes and rear-view mirrors, of which it produces over 20 million a year. The goal of the alliance will be for both groups to develop projects towards a future self-driving car, while also being mutually advantageous from a business perspective.

Tourism booms in Spain, with 9 million international visitors in August 2014, up by 8.8% since last year. Official data shows record breaking numbers, with August being the busiest month. In the first seven months of this year, tourists spent over €34.5 billion, the highest number in history. Catalonia is the most popular destination, attracting over 2.4 million tourists in August alone, a 7.5% increase from last year. Following Catalonia, the best results were seen in the Balearic Islands and Andalucía, all of which showed significant increases in recorded visitors for this year. August has been the busiest month on record, with tourists mainly coming from France and Italy, while over the whole year, the most frequent visitor continues to be British.

For the second consecutive year, Catalonia's main airport hosted more passengers than its Madrid competitor during the month of August, becoming the busiest airfield in Spain. 4.24 million people travelled through Barcelona El Prat last August, representing an 8.6% increase on the figure from the previous year. Meanwhile, 3.99 million travellers passed through the Adolfo Suárez Madrid-Barajas Airport (a +5% growth). In the last few years, the Catalan airport has consistently been gaining passengers, particularly attracted by Barcelona's tourist and business activities as well as by the increase of inter-continental flights, while Madrid's airport was losing passengers for a number of years. However, in the last few months, the Spanish capital has started to gain passengers again, although at a slower pace than Barcelona. The first time the Barcelonan airport overtook Madrid's was in August 2013.

The Instituto Cervantes in Utrecht was obliged to cancel the presentation of 'Victus', a novel by Catalan author Albert Sánchez Piñol on the Spanish Succession War and Barcelona's military siege of 1714, after which Catalonia lost its self-government institutions and political, social and cultural repression started. According to the author, his Dutch editorial house Signatuur and the Communication Director of the Cervantes Institute, the Spanish Embassy in The Netherlands obliged them to cancel the event the day before it was supposed to happen for political reasons. However, the Spanish Government is denying any political veto and states the cancellation was due to "diary problems". The scandal has been covered by Dutch media and Juliette Van Wersh, Publisher at Signatuur, stated they are "shocked" for a decision against "freedom of expression". The President of the Catalan Government, Artur Mas, stated that this veto is "in line with the international boycott" which Spanish authorities are carrying out against self-determination.

Cirque du Soleil and PortAventura theme park have announced that they are pleased with the success of the show 'Kooza', which the Canadian circus company has been performing at the Catalan resort every day this summer, and will consider future collaborations together. PortAventura was the first resort in Europe to host a show from this world-famous entertainment company. From July the 11^th this year up until last Saturday, more than 100,000 people attended the show performed by Cirque du Soleil. As a result of this success, the two companies have agreed to meet again soon to talk about future collaborations. For PortAventura, with nearly 4 million attendees per year, this cooperation is a step towards consolidating its overriding strategy of attracting more international brands and consolidating its position as one of the best family entertainment destinations in Europe.

Barcelona has become one of the main European tourist destinations and, probably, the hottest low-cost tourism hub. It attracts millions of foreigners each year, many of whom show up in the city mainly for the beach and partying. The Barceloneta neighbourhood is one of several hotspots affected most severly by the tourism boom. It is near the beach and has become the preferred housing spot for holidaymakers. However, some visitors' unruly attitudes on the street – such as urinating, getting fully naked or singing loudly – have become a problem. Several neighbourhood protests against the so-called "drunken tourism" and illegal holiday apartments have been held in the past two weeks in the Barceloneta area. As a response, the Mayor of Barcelona, Xavier Trias, declared ''war'' on the illegal tourist accommodation and promised to bring an end to the disturbances caused by wild tourism. As a start, the City Council has begun to shut down tourist flats without license.

Catalonia is at the forefront of international tourist spending within Spain in the first seven months of this year with €8.151million, a 5.3% increase over the same period of last year, according to the Spanish Ministry of Industry, Energy and Tourism. In Spain as a whole, international tourists spent €34.497 million between January and July, a 7% interannual increase from 2013 and the highest ever figure recorded in this period. Catalonia also accounted for 23.6% of the total figure for Spain during this period of the year.

Barcelona will host one of the main and most innovative business accelerators in the world, Startupbootcamp, which is winner of Europe's 2014 Best Startup Accelerator and specialises in new technologies. The German company will select 10 start-ups from all around the world to help them develop their projects specifically related to the so-called Internet of Things (IoT), which is the technology connecting electronic devices to each other in order to improve quality of life. Startupbootcamp will set up its office in the 22@ technological and business district, which occupies the revamped Poblenou old industrial neighbourhood. During 3 months it will select the projects from the Media TIC building, where the Mobile World Capital has its main offices, which is the foundation that aims to transform Barcelona into the capital for the world's cell-phone and mobility industry, after organising the Mobile World Congress each year.

The Catalan Government has issued a provisional list of the companies that might be granted a license to build and run one of the 6 mega-casinos of the $6 billion BCN World resort to be developed next to Port-Aventura theme park. The surprises are that Catalonia-based Grup Peralada -which runs casinos, luxury hotels, an international performing arts festival and vineyards- is one of the contenders and that the offer with Caesars Entertainment has not been initially accepted. Veremonte, which promotes the entire BCN World project, announced that it had initially presented a total of 3 offers to get 3 casino licenses in association with Melco, Hard Rock and Caesars Entertainment. In addition, there were two non-disclosed additional bids: one from Grup Peralada and one presented by Melco by itself. The Veremonte-Hard Rock and Veremonte-Melco offers have also been pre-accepted, but a third offer from Veremonte and Caesars would be out of the tender, although an appeal might be filed.

Xarxa, an initiative launched by Barcelona's City Council and the Catalan Government in July 2011 to combat petty theft on Barcelona's metro, has managed to reduce criminal activity by 34% in 3 years. Between June 2013 and June 2014, 17,156 robberies that took place in the underground rail network were reported by travellers. This represents a significant improvement from the 26,130 reported crimes in 2011, out of 389 million journeys that were taken on the metro that year.  This drop of criminal activity – mostly pickpocketing – has been due to the success of the combined pressure from the Catalan and Barcelonan local police forces, known as the Mossos d'Esquadra and Guàrdia Urbana respectively. Just 100 repeat offenders are responsible for the 4,417 arrests and 3,181 charges from pickpocketing on the Barcelona's metro. 18 of these criminals have been totally banned from entering the underground rail network.