Barcelona Global celebrated in March the Wednesday the 1st Barcelona Global Summit: Innovation in Urban Tourism, the outcome of two years of labour, to propose a series of concrete recommendations to improve the relationship between the city and tourism.
Never before has the tourism sector of the city, in al its transversality, represented by more than 50 companies from all the links in the value chain of the sector, thought to contribute its vision, its experience and its capacity of work with a comprehensive perspective of the city, thinking about the problems and the opportunities that the touristic city as a whole represents and offers, and putting ideas and project on the table.
Our proposals to improve the management of tourism in Barcelona, based on the analysis of the success stories of New York, Miami, Cape Town and Amsterdam, and focus on: boosting public-private collaboration (counting on the private sector to develop and invest in areas of interest); using technology to improve the visitor's experience and convenience with the resident, in particular to improve mobility and housing; music as an activity of value added generation (introducing a surcharge in the Tourist Tax); and improving the perception of tourism by the resident by visualizing the contribution of tourism and the responsibility of the sector.
Amongst the international experts that participated in the Summit we counted with: Carl Weisbrod, NYC Department of City Planning, Deede Weithorn, Former Commissioner of Miami Beach, Julie-May Elligson, CEO of Cape Town International Convention Center, Geerte Udo, Director of Marketing at Amsterdam Marketing; which were inaugurated and closed by renowned Professor Greg Clark CBE, one of the most respected city consultants of the urban planning world.
Angel Díaz, President of Advanced Leisure Services; Juan Julià, Founder and Owner of Axel Hotels; Chris Nagy, Principal at WhiteLabel Creative; Pau Guardans, President at Único Hotels and Vicepresident at Barcelona Global; Michael Goldenberg, General Director of Spain and Corporate Group Director at Value Retail; and Luis Falcón, Co-founder and CEO at InAtlas, developed the proposals for Barcelona.
Finally, we counted with the panel "Barcelona visions" with 2-star Michelin chef Ramon Freixa; architect, Co-Founder and CEO of Miralles Tagliabue EMBT Benedetta Tagliabue; Antonio de Lacy, Chief of Gastrointestinal Surgery Department at Hospital Clinic Barcelona and President at AIS and Fernando Aleu, MD, Chairman at Queen Sofia Spanish Institute, New York. In addition, the panel was moderated by Pau Guardans.
To know the proposals in more depth, we attached the dossier down below.
Watch the VIDEO of the event.
Watch the videos of each conferences:
- Gonzalo Rodés: Key takeaways
- Professor Greg Clark: ‘City benchmark as a development tool’
- Carl Weisbrod: 'New Destinations. Creating new areas of interest. New York’
- Deede Weithorn: ‘Promoting value added activities. Attracting new audiences and Seasonal Spread. Miami’
- Julie-May Ellingson: ‘Reverting the tourism wealth. Cape Town’
- Geerte Udo: ‘Technology as a tool to improve the visitor’s experience. Amsterdam’
- Professor Greg Clark: ‘Relaunching the tourism sector of a city after a crisis’
