IBTM: Barcelona tackles the big issues

At IBTM World CMW caught up with Christoph Tessmar (pictured left), Barcelona Convention Bureau director, to talk about Barcelona’s sustainability mission and the city’s tech and medical appeal. Conference & Meetings World: What is driving events to Barcelona? Christoph Tessmar: Across Barcelona, we have a great and organised infrastructure – so travel doesn’t require long distances. As Fira de Barcelona is one of the most recognised fairgrounds, we host many different events. To this end, the city, the hoteliers, the convention bureau, and Fira de Barcelona work as a team. Most importantly, having the support of our city helps to drive this success. CMW: Why is Barcelona so alluring to tech companies? CT: We’ve been grateful to host the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona for several years, and just renewed our agreement until a minimum of 2030. Having the Congress in the city creates a lot of legacy. We’ve creates a product called Mobile Capital: a partnership between the Spanish, Catalan, and Barcelona institutions. Together with GSMA, the Mobile World Congress’ organisers, Barcelona has become one of the most important start-up hubs in Europe. We also have a strong legacy of hosting big corporate tech events – such as for Hewlett-Packard. Step by step we became a hub for many tech companies and their events – and we’re attracting more all the time. CMW: Barcelona attracts many medical events too, why are they attracted to the city? CT: To become a thriving destination for hosting medical conferences, you always need support from the city – not from the political side, but Barcelona’s strong medical and scientific community. We have renowned professors, doctors, and leading hospitals. They’re our ambassadors for bringing in these conferences and some of them host in Barcelona quite often – such as ESC Congress 2022. The conferences are well organised, have good attendance, and get financial results – because the conventions work well with our medical and scientific communities. CMW: Lastly, what are Barcelona Convention Bureau’s future development plans? CT: We don’t want to only focus on the numbers, I think it’s not relevant – but being a successful destination is. We want to maintain our current success while developing our legacy. Everyone talks about the economic impact of congresses, but there are larger impacts too such as social and education. Barcelona is always in the news for its tourism. There are discussions about it causing conflicts with the local community, but we need to communicate better and explain. For example, in 2019 Barcelona hosted the first 5G remote surgery in a hospital during Mobile World Congress. As this hospital now does many operations with 5G technology, these developments bring great benefits – that’s what we need to be communicating more. That does something for our legacy. But, there is an economic impact. We want to see what opportunities we can find in new markets such as Latin America while working with the local community. Back for good At IBTM World, it was announced by David Thompson, IBTM World’s event director; Christoph Tessmar, BCB director; and Ruben Dalmau, commercial director of the Fira Barcelona, that a new deal has been signed agreeing that Barcelona will continue to host IBTM World until 2025.