tourism

International sales of Catalonia's sparkling wine Cava have amounted to 241.3 million bottles in 2013, 0.77% less than the previous year. The President of the Cava Regulatory Council, Pere Bonet presented such figures in a press conference on Tuesday. Bonet linked this decrease with the current economic context and recalled that other regions producing sparkling wine had registered sharper declines, for instance Champagne with a 2% drop. The Spanish market, accounting for one third of Cava sales, has performed better than in previous years and only fell by 0.47%. On the other hand, sales in the foreign market, which had increased every year since 1980, registered a 0.92% decrease in 2013.

Catalonia’s PortAventura and Ferrari have reached an agreement to build a new area dedicated to the illustrious sports cars, expanding the current amusement park. Thanks to an over €100 million investment, ‘Ferrari Land’ will open in 2016 with 75,000 m² at its disposal. Visitors will discover several attractions designed for fans of the Italian brand, including a vertical accelerator announced as the highest and fastest in Europe. ‘Ferrari Land’ will also host the first Ferrari themed hotel, which will offer 5-star accommodation in 250 rooms. The Italian company had already opened a dedicated theme park in Abu Dhabi named ‘Ferrari World’, which was met with much success among fans of the prancing horse. The new amusement facilities will be built next to 'BCN World', a $6 billion resort that will open next to PortAventura, with hotels, conference centres, casinos, theatres and golf courses.

For the first time ever, over 7.5 million tourists stayed in one of Barcelona’s hotels in 2013. More specifically, the Catalan capital welcomed 7.571,766 visitors in its hotel rooms last year, meaning a 1.77% increase on 2012, when Barcelona’s hotels accounted for 7.440,113 guests. 80% of visitors are foreigners, mainly from France, the UK and the US. Besides, this increase in the number of hotel guests  is not the only record achieved last year. Indeed, the number of overnight stays has also reached an unprecedented number, with almost 16.5 million overnight stays registered in 2013, a 3.4% growth on 2012 figures.   

The Catalan Executive announced it will take the Spanish Government’s Hydrologic Plan for the Ebro River (Plan Hidrológico del Ebro) to the European Commission, as it will damage the river’s delta, which is a unique environment and one of UNESCO’s Biosphere Reserves. The European Commission replied that it will need “weeks or even months” to analyse the plan, which only guarantees that around 30% of the river’s volume of flow will reach the delta. According to scientific studies, such a volume of water is absolutely insufficient to preserve the Delta, which is a reserve for wildlife as well as a tourist and agricultural centre. The project foresees allocating almost 11,000 cubic hectometres of water per year upstream to irrigate 1.41 million hectares of fields, a third of them newly-created. Brussels is still waiting for Madrid’s documentation but the Commission warned that it will look at the plan “from all the possible angles”.

The ‘Allure of the Seas’, which is currently the largest cruise ship in the world, will operate from 2015 onwards from the Port of Barcelona. Next year, it will offer 25 different routes from or to the Catalan capital. For each trip, the ‘Allure of the Seas’, which belongs to Royal Caribbean, welcomes 6,318 passengers on board. Due to the considerable size of the boat - 361 meters long - passengers will access and exit the facilities through two terminals of Barcelona’s Harbour. Royal Caribbean stated that the 158,000 passengers expected to travel on all 25 routes will bring €17.5 million to Barcelona’s local economy each year. It will be the first time the ‘Allure of the Seas’, which currently operates in the Caribbean, will drop anchor in a European harbour.

The premises of Barcelona’s Hospital de la Santa Creu i Sant Pau, the largest Art-Nouveau structure in Europe, were unveiled on Monday by the President of the Catalan Government, Artur Mas, the Vice President of the European Commission, Viviane Reding, the Spanish Minister of Public Works, Ana Pastor, and the Mayor of Barcelona, ??Xavier Trias. The Hospital was designed by Architect Lluis Domenech i Montaner over a century ago and it was divided in a set of pavilions located in a park. It has treated its very last patient in June 2009, before moving to new facilities. After 5 years of renovation works, the compound has become a centre devoted to research and innovation, now hosting renowned international institutions. The building is also looking to become a major tourist attraction, with 120,000 visitors expected each year. All the politicians present at the unveiling stressed that the rehabilitation was the result of a close collaboration between governments and institutions.

PortAventura will be launching new attraction ‘Angkor: Adventure in the Lost Kingdom’ this year to coincide with the start of the 2014 season in early April. The new attraction will allow visitors to embark on a 300 meter boat trip through the Asian jungle, designed to simulate the historic Cambodian temple: Angkor Wat. The attraction is located in the China area of the park, near Shambhala, Europe´s highest rollercoaster. The new attraction is a replicate of the temple, which is said to be the largest religious structure in the world. Meanwhile, the park will host Cirque du Soleil’s ‘Kooza’ show during the summer months.

The President of Barcelona Chamber of Commerce, Miquel Valls, stated on Thursday that the independence process was not affecting Catalonia’s economic recovery. During a press conference, Valls emphasised that such a statement was based on concrete “facts”. He stressed that Catalonia had tripled the amount of incoming foreign investment compared to the Spanish average, and that the Catalan economy had also registered better figures in enterprise creation and business confidence, employment and other indicators showing an economic recovery According to the report on conjecture and economic perspectives, the Catalan GDP grew by 0.7% during the fourth quarter of 2013, whereas the Spanish GDP dropped by 0.1%. Valls also recalled that the consultation vote on the political future of Catalonia would involve “citizens and not businesses”, thus responding to the employers who recently voiced their opposition to Catalonia’s independence.

The project ‘Persecuted and Saved’ will tell the story of how 80,000 WW2 refugees escaped persecution and death through the Pyrenees mountains into Catalonia. The Israel Ambassador in Spain, Alon Bar, and the CEO of EL-AL - the main Israeli airline, Walter Wasercier, have already taken a key interest in the project, aiming to promote the history of the 20,000 Jews that used the mountains to escape from the Holocaust and obtain their freedom. The project is based in the Province of Lleida, in western Catalonia, around various historical sites, including refugee camps and mountain pathways used by fleeing refugees.

The Catalan economy has continued on a positive trend during the fourth quarter of 2013, also speeding up the recovery process. According to data released on Friday by the Catalan Ministry of Economy and Knowledge alongside the Catalan Institute of Statistics (Idescat), Catalonia’s GDP grew by 0.4% in the fourth quarter of 2013, while the Spanish average stood at 0.3%. In the whole year, the Catalan GDP has decreased by 0.6 %, while in 2012 it dropped by 1.3%. The continued good results in exports due to the increasing external demand and the improvement of the domestic demand have driven the economy forward.

An investment fund from Qatar has bought the Hotel Renaissance, located in the Eixample neighbourhood of the Catalan capital. Inici del formulariAccording to La Vanguardianewspaper, the transaction was closed at the price of €78.5 million. The Marriott Group will continue running the establishment as the agreement provides for a long-term management, but the Qatari buyer will participate in the most strategic decisions. The hotel passed from having four-stars when it belonged to AC Hotels, to five stars, after being purchased by the Marriott Group. Its workforce expanded considerably to reach a hundred employees after its re-opening in March 2012. The hotel features 211 rooms and had an average occupancy of 67 % during its first opening year.

Last year, Catalonia was the leading Autonomous Community in Spain for foreign tourism spending, which generated €14.02 billion, 13.4 % more than in 2012, according to the Tourist Expenditure Survey (EGATUR) of the Spanish Ministry of Industry, Energy and Tourism. The average spending per stay in Catalonia amounted to €903 per foreign visitor, 4.9% more than in 2012, while the daily spending was set at €120 per person, 1.4 % more than the previous year. Catalonia accounted for 23.7 % of foreign tourism spending in Spain, which reached €59.08 billion. Besides, tourism spending grew more in Catalonia than in any other Autonomous Communities in Spain and is well above the Spanish 9.6 % average increase over the previous year.

According to the Spanish Statistics Institute (INE), the 49.26 million overnight stays registered in 2013 amounted to a 1.82% increase on the previous year, thanks to a 5.34% rise for foreign guests. On the other hand, due to the economic crisis, the number of overnight stays for Spaniards fell by 6.82%. The number of visitors who stayed in one of Catalonia’s 2,122 hotels in 2013 reached a total of 16.240 million people, an increase of 0.02 % over 2012. The number of foreign guests also increased, by 3.62 %, while the number of Spanish visitors fell by 5.66 %. Catalan hotels registered a 55.55% occupancy rate, above the 55.51% posted in 2012.

In 2013, Catalonia was the first tourist destination in Spain. It received15.6 million foreign visitors, meaning 25.7 % of the total number of international tourists in Spain (one in four). The figure represents an 8% increase over the previous year. The Balearic Islands were in second place, welcoming over 11 million tourists (18.3%), a 7.2% increase. The Catalan Minister for Business and Employment, Felip Puig, stressed that tourist spending also increased significantly, generating €14.2 billion in 2013, that is to say 14% more than the previous year. At Spanish level, the number of foreign visitors reached a new record: Spain welcomed 60.6 million tourists in 2013, making it the third favourite travel destination in the world, behind France and the United States.

12 Catalan campsites are now amongst the very best in Europe after receiving the award for ‘Best Camping 2014’, one of the highest existing distinctions for this type of tourist establishments. They were each awarded ‘5 stars’ and are listed in a guide published by Germany’s main Automobile Association (ADAC), read by millions of German and Dutch campers. Seven of the twelve campsites are located in the Province of Girona, on the Costa Brava (north-eastern Catalonia). Invited in the main CMT Tourism Fair in Stuttgart, the directors of the campsites have stated that these distinctions would be instrumental in attracting more campers from Germany, which has a significant number of potential customers.