The ITB is considered one of the most important tourism fairs in Europe.
From 6 to 10 March, Calella participated once again in the Internationale Tourismusbörse, ITB Berlin, one of the most important fairs in Europe for travel industry experts and the general public. As on other occasions, Calella has been present within the stand of the Catalan Tourism Agency, sharing space with other destinations from Costa de Barcelona.
This presence at the ITB fair has allowed the delegation of Calella to carry out interviews with travel agencies and tour operators, as well as to promote the attractions of the city among the large audience.
The German market
According to the INE (Statistics National Institute), the normalization of tourist flows to eastern Mediterranean destinations such as Turkey, Tunisia and Greece (which have also lowered prices) has been noticeable in the first ten months of 2018 also in the German market, which has shown a retreat in Spain both in the number of tourists (-4.8%), as spending (-2.5%) and overnight stays (-7.6%). Keep in mind that Catalonia is the third destination of German tourists in Spain, behind the Canary Islands and the Balearic Islands.
Regarding the Catalan area, for the same reasons, the German market also experienced a decrease during the summer of 2018 (-10.5% in number of tourists, -15.5% in overnight stays), according to the latest Balance report summer tour of the Catalan Observatory of Work and Productive Model.
In Calella, despite the decline in recent years, the German market remains one of the most important with a total of 231,876 overnight stays (12.18%) recorded between the months of May and October 2018. Currently it is the fourth market in importance, behind Spanish, Russian and British.
The access data to the website calellabarcelona.com from Germany shows a growing interest in the destination. During the year 2018, visits to the web have grown 80% over the previous year, and when they do it from mobile devices this indicator shows an increase of 117%. As for the most visited content, the Germans are curious about surroundings of Calella and what to visit nearby, as well as the event calendar, activities and the Lighthouse of Calella.