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Calella has promoted its family and sports tourism offer in the Belgian market during the Salon des Vacances fair, held in Brussels from February 6 to 9. This is an event especially aimed at the final consumer, so it is the ideal showcase to promote the city not only for the Belgian public, but also for other European nationalities who also attend the event, such as the Netherlands and Luxembourg.

The Salon des Vacances 2020 edition has had more than 800 destinations represented and has achieved an attendance of more than 100,000 people, according to the organization. Once again, Calella has been present with its own counter, together with the Diputación de Barcelona (Costa Barcelona) and under the umbrella of Turespaña.

Attendance at the Salon des Vacances is part of the city's tourism promotion strategy in the different issuing markets, in this case the Belgian market and with special emphasis on the promotion of sports tourism, active and family tourism.

Belgian market data

According to the latest data from the survey of the Belgian Tour Operators Association, Spain is the second country preferred by the Belgians when traveling abroad, with a 10.6% market share. It is ahead of Italy (8.3%) and the Netherlands (6.2%) and only behind France (19.6%,).

Catalonia ranks the third position among the Spanish destinations preferred by the Belgian traveler, behind Valencia and Andalusia. According to data from the Catalan Tourism Agency, during the year 2019, 402,100 Belgians visited Catalonia, 16% of the total of those who traveled to Spain. It should be noted that the majority of Belgians visiting Catalonia come from the Flanders region (60%) and have Dutch as their usual language.

Its average stay is 7 days and the preferred accommodation is the hotel (62%), followed by other formulas for renting apartments and houses (25%) and, to a lesser extent, camping stays (6%). The average expenditure is above 900 euros per person, one of the highest among European issuing markets.

As for Calella, the Belgian market has remained stable in recent years (around 2.15% of the total overnight stays), registering a total of 39,890 overnight stays between May and October 2019.

The main motivations of the Belgian tourist to travel during their vacations are the beaches, their surroundings and nature, although they also appreciate the cultural visits, the local gastronomy and the practice of activities such as hiking or cycling.

In this sense, if we analyze the data of visits to the website calellabarcelona.com from Belgium, we can observe an interest in the contents related to culture (things to do), shopping, the municipal market, how to get to Calella and the Dalmau Park. Although visits from Belgium only represent 1.6% of total visits on the web, they grow by 23.2% during 2019, compared to the previous year. Visits from Belgian users mainly are from Brussels.