neuigkeiten

From 5 to 7 November 2018, Calella has been present at the World Travel Market in London, one of the most important business to business exhibition for travel industry professionals in the world. Once again, Calella has participated in the institutional stand of Catalonia under the Barcelona tourism brand, along with other destinations present at the counter of the Office of Tourism Promotion Office of the Diputació de Barcelona.

Calella attended WTM event with the aim of consolidating the image of the city as a destination for family and sports tourism, as well as capturing new trends in the British market and reinforcing the promotion of new tourism products such as cultural tourism, active tourism, gastronomy and the increasingly important segment of accessible tourism. During the trade show, the area of Tourism of Calella held meetings with various tour operators and travel agencies specialized in the British market.

Data of the British market

According to the latest Turespaña report on tourism from the United Kingdom, active or nature holidays, as well as cultural and urban tourism and everything related to gastronomy and wine tourism, are the segments that show a greater capacity for growth in the British market. Although the climate continues to be a key factor for the British, who enjoy holidays as a necessity and not a luxury, it is setting a profile type of tourist more interested in culture, cities and gastronomy, definitely more cosmopolitan. In the case of Calella, its privileged location, close to both Barcelona and Girona, becomes a determining factor to capture this traveler wanting to know and do activities outside the summer season, without giving up good weather and beaches.

According to the data published by the Catalan Tourism Agency in the Introduction to the study of issuing markets 2018, in the case of Catalonia, in relation to the total data of foreign tourists, British market had a market share above 11 %, which allowed it to be on the second position in number of tourists behind the French market. Neither the Brexit nor the political situation in Catalonia significantly affected the volume of arrivals and spending of British tourists during 2017, since in the first case they increased by 5% and in the second by 1.3%.

However, according to the report of Inflow of foreign tourism published by the Observatory of Labor and Productive Model of the Generalitat de Catalunya in October 2018, between January and August of 2018 there has been a decrease of 9.2% in the number of British tourists in Catalonia but, on the other hand, there has been an increase in average spending per person. In these months of 2018, tourists from the United Kingdom have generated an expenditure of 1.3 million euros, 5.6% more than last year.

Nevertheless, today it is still early to forecast and we will have to observe the evolution of competing markets such as Turkey, Egypt and Tunisia, which since the end of 2017 show signs of recovery in terms of British tourist reserves, after a few years of instability and general insecurity.

In Calella, the British market holds 4th position in the main markets ranking, behind Spanish, Russian and German. From May to October of this year, there were a total of 209,740 overnight stays of tourists from the United Kingdom in Calella, with a decrease of 18.49% compared to the same dates in 2017. We have to keep in mind that flight and tour packages in Egypt, Tunisia and Turkey have started again and there has also been a progressive increase in the market share of Portugal, Cyprus and Greece.

In this regard, the participation of Calella in WTM has been considered key to consolidate the tourism marketing strategies of our destination aimed at recovering and expanding tourism from the United Kingdom.

During 2018, various actions have been carried out to improve positioning SEO of website www.calellabarcelona.com in the United Kingdom and digital marketing campaigns on the Internet and social networks. In particular, a promotional campaign was carried out on Facebook, segmented for family tourism and sports tourism in the British market, which contributed to the increase in registered visits to the tourism website. From January to October 2018, visits to www.calellabarcelona.com from the United Kingdom have grown almost 300% over the previous year. Largest numbers of visitors was from London and, in relation to the most visited content, highlight the Ironman, activities in summer, gastronomy (where to eat) and shopping.