infos

From 1 to 4 February, Calella has participated once again in the Salon des Vacances, the most important fair in the tourism sector in Belgium which annually gathers more than 100,000 people. The event, held at the "Brussels Expo" exhibition center, allowed the delegation of Calella to promote its tourist offer and to get feedback as well on the major motivations of the Belgian market when planning their holidays for this year.

The City Council of Calella has taken part together with the Provincial Council of Barcelona (Costa Barcelona) and under the umbrella of Turespaña. As this is an exhibiton fully aimed at the final consumer, it becomes a key opportunity to detect the profile type of the Belgian tourist who visits us. This is a great help to make better promotion on the city’s range of options for tourism and leisure in line with the Belgian market interests, one of the most important European outbound tourism.

Catalonia is the second destination for Belgian tourists traveling to Spain

The Belgian market is currently a modest but interesting market. According to the WES survey (West Vlaams Economisch Studie Bureau), after France (28.33%) and the Netherlands (13.3%), Spain is the third destination of Belgian tourists traveling abroad, with a market share of 11.2%. According to a survey conducted in Belgium by WES, 36% of Belgians say they intend to travel to Spain.

Catalonia ranks second as the preferred destination for Belgian tourists traveling to Spain, after the Canary Islands. In Catalonia they make 22% of the overnight stays and 19% of the total of Spain. Last year more than 429,000 Belgian tourists visited Catalonia and made an expenditure of 449 million euros, which means a total expenditure of 1,046.62 euros per tourist (120.3€/day if we take into account that their average stay is 8.7 days according to the INE, Spanish National Statistics Institute). Also according to data from the INE, from January to November 2017 the Belgian market registered a +7% growth in the flow of tourists, while overnight stays have remained stable (0.5%).

As for Calella, the Belgian market has remained quite stable (around 2.5% of the total number of overnight stays) during the last years and with a total of 42,731 overnight stays between the months of May and October 2017.

In relation to the main reasons for deciding the holiday’s destination, according to data from the Catalan Tourism Agency, the Belgian tourist focuses on the beauty of the landscape and sunny weather, but "also appreciates the cultural visits and enjoy with the gastronomy local and with the practice of activities such as hiking or cycling". In this sense, the data of visits to the website calellabarcelona.com from Belgium shows us an interest in the contents related to culture (things to do), shopping, the municipal market, water sports activities, how to get there and where to eat. Although the visits from Belgium only represent 1.45% of the total visits to the web, these have increase 35.24% during 2017, with respect to the previous year.