tourist

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.

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.

A new and surprising temporary restaurant, named El Vol Espai Gastronòmic, has opened in Girona, in north-eastern Catalonia, to host some of the best Catalan chefs, such as Joan Roca, whose establishment was named the world's best restaurant in 2013. El Vol is partly suspended over the Onyar River and is a glass and iron structure, transparent and white, which is 20 meters long, weighs 28 tons and is situated in Girona's historic neighbourhood. After just 10 days running, and despite the fact that it only serves lunch and dinner to small groups of 18 customers, it already has 1,100 reservations and some 20 top chefs confirmed to be working there for a few days each during the next year. The new venue is expected to showcase the best of Girona's cuisine and has already sparked much international interest amongst journalists, culinary experts and tour operators from all over the world.

Barcelona Olympic Ring will become the home of the first theme park in the world entirely dedicated to sports, called Open Camp Sportainment. According to the company responsible for the project, the 66.000 m² theme park will offer a "unique" show involving technology, family and sports. The new attraction will occupy the current Olympic Stadium, the Palau Sant Jordi sports hall, the Olympic Museum, the Bernat Picornell swimming pool, the telecommunications tower designed by Santiago Calatrava and the INEFC sports faculty. All these facilities will combine their regular activities with those of the theme park, which will be open from April to October. The project expects 7,000 visitors per day and an annual economic impact for Barcelona of 53 million euros.  

On Wednesday the first door to the Façade of the Nativity of the Sagrada Familia, Barcelona’s famous basilica designed by Antoni Gaudí, was finally installed. The bronze gate is inspired by nature and is full of metal leaves, flowers and insects. It is located in the ‘Portal of Charity,’ and is the creation of Japanese sculptor Etsuro Sotoo, a passionate follower of Gaudí’s career who has been collaborating in the construction of the church since 1978. At 7 metres tall by 3 metres wide, the ornate door is the first of four pieces that will be installed in this part of the temple as it is completed. The concept of the Nativity Façade is to illustrate the major events of the early life of Jesus Christ through a sculptural and ornamental design full of optimism and joy. The construction of the doors of the basilica is scheduled to be completed in 2015.

On the 16^th July Barcelona art centre Caixaforumopened its last major exhibition of the season entitled ´Beauty captivates. Little treasures from the Museo del Prado´. The exhibition contains 135 small canvases from the great artists within Madrid´s museum collection such as Velázquez, El Greco, Rubens, Goya and Tiziano. It will run for almost six months, until the 5^th of January 2015. The exhibition will enable visitors to contemplate the virtuosity of great masters of painting from the 14^th to the 19^th century dealing with small-scale works. It is the second largest collection of works that a host museumhas exhibited from the Museo del Prado, one of Europe's largest art collections.

Barcelona has gone from 22^nd to 7^th place in the list of 468 European cities with the best economic prospects; it is ranked the 19^th most competitive city in the world and the 10^th in Europe; it stands at 10^th in the world in terms of receiving new business investments; and it became the 4^th city hosting the largest amount of congresses at world level. The report was produced by the Chamber of Commerce of Barcelona in collaboration with the City Council. Furthermore, another study compiled by ESADE business school stressed that Barcelona is the 1^st European city in money spent per tourist in shopping, ahead of London and Paris. The Mayor of Barcelona, ??Xavier Trias, welcomed the news but also emphasised the ''shadow'' of having more than 100,000 unemployed in Barcelona, a number he finds “unbearable.”

An agreement between the Centre-Right pro-Catalan State Coalition (CiU) – which runs Barcelona's municipal government in minority – and the People's Party (PP) will allow shops located in tourist areas of the Catalan capital to be open on Sundays during the summer season, from 10am to 6pm. Shops in Catalonia are normally closed on Sundays, with few exceptions for the Christmas or sales seasons. However, shops in small tourist towns are allowed greater flexibility during holidays and can open on Sundays. The case of Barcelona is quite unusual, since it is the largest tourist destination in Catalonia but it is also a big city with a dense network of small and neighbourhood shops. These small shops could be damaged if they have to open longer hours (with the increase of financial and personal costs associated) in order to compete with multinationals.

The Catalan Parliament has finally approved the legal framework allowing the construction and the activities of the BCN World mega-resort, to be located next to PortAventura amusement park in the Costa Daurada. Now, the company Veremonte has the final green light to start construction, after it already had announced the first investors some months ago. Casino giant Melco, hotel brand Melià, US Hard Rock, Value Retail shopping malls and Investindustrial, which owns PortAventura, will participate in the $6 billion project. Furthermore, Ferrari announced it will build its first theme park in Europe there. BCN World involves 6 mega-casinos, large-size hotels, shopping malls, convention centres, theatres, golf courses, parks, a beach club, technology institutes and smart city developments.

FC Barcelona has opened a new quality gastronomic space with exclusive views of the Barça's Stadium, as part of the Camp Nou Experience tour. From this week and until mid-August, the first tier of the stadium is converted a space where visitors can enjoy quality cuisine with a privileged panoramic view of the ground. This is just one of the many new attractions that FC Barcelona has prepared so that people visiting the club this summer can enjoy the most complete leisure and catering experience possible. In this space, apart from a wide range of Damm beers, including the beer created in collaboration with Catalan chef Ferran Adrià and the team from El Bulli called Inedit, visitors can enjoy hot and cold tapas, desserts and ice creams.

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.

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.

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.