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Investindustrial, PortAventura’s only shareholder since last November, will invest €75 million in enlarging the park’s facilities within the next five years. The amusement park, located in the Costa Daurada in Southern Catalonia, near Salou and Tarragona, has already been enlarged over the last few years adding the water park Caribe Aquatic next to the beach and several adjacent hotel resorts. Furthermore, the Italian group will change the park’s brand to: ‘PortAventura: European Destination Resort’. Investindustrial aim to reach 5 million visitors per year, half of which will come from abroad. As a start, the Italian group is investing €10 million in new projects for this new season, which will kick off on the 22nd of March.

The Catalan theme park PortAventura, located on the Costa Daurada, between Tarragona and Salou, will be completely controlled by Investindustrial, a fund run by the Bonomi family. Portaventura is the only profitable theme park in Spain and one of only a few in Europe. Investindustrial is buying the remaining 50% of the park for €105 million. Furthermore, they have announced a future investment of €80 million to foster the park’s international expansion. PortAventura is located next to the land where the €6 billion mega-resort Barcelona World will be built. The Italian group has a consolidated trajectory of investing large amounts of capital in businesses from a wide range of sectors to ensure growth.

‘Barcelona World’, located next to Salou’s beaches and PortaAventura, will have 6 new theme parks, as well as 12,000 hotel rooms, casinos, convention centres, golf courses and other amusement facilities. 10 million people are expected to visit the mega-resort funded by Veremonte each year, which will create 40,000 jobs. ‘Barcelona World’, located next to Tarragona in the Costa Daurada, will be Europe’s largest amusement resort and among the world’s largest, targeting family and business tourism. Construction may be complete by late 2016. The project has been announced after the expiration of the offer made to Las Vegas Sands to build its casinos next to Barcelona. This American company has not announced if it will finally build ‘Eurovegas’ in Madrid yet, but the Barcelona option seems to be ruled out.

Tourism from Russia and former Soviet republics has been increasing in Catalonia over the last few years. The Russian tour operator Natalie Tours announced that it will bring 35,000 Ukrainian tourists to Spain, 80% them going to Catalan beaches and the rest to the Canary Islands. Within the next 5 years, the number of Ukrainian tourists is expected to reach half million people. Furthermore, the number of tourists from Eastern Europe is expected to increase between 35% and 40%.

The Catalan theme park PortAventura opened its doors last weekend for the new season. Despite the crisis, in 2011 the park registered 16% more visitors than in 2010, reaching 3.7 million in total. The park’s CEO, Fernando Aldecoa, has said they expect to reach 4 million visitors this season, which ends just after Halloween. This season, €25 million has been invested in a new rollercoaster called ‘Shambhala’, which will be the tallest in Europe and will reach speeds of 134 km per hour during a fall of 78 metres.

The Catalan theme park, located on the Costa Daurada next to Tarragona, will invest 25 million euros building the new attraction, which will be 76 metres high and will emulate the Himalaya. In addition, users will reach a speed of 134 km/h. The new rollercoaster’s name and exact design are still a mystery, but it will cross the Dragon Khan four times. The Catalan President assisted in the ceremony of the laying of the first stone. The attraction will be ready in May 2012.

The city of Tarragona, located on the southern coast of Catalonia, will be the host city of the 2017 Mediterranean Games after ten years of candidature work. Together with Tarragona, another twelve Catalan towns will be hosts for different sport competitions with the common objective being to promote the area internationally. Many have in mind the excellent results of Barcelona Olympics of 1992.