Americans are Number One in Barcelona
by Maria Lisella /Americans took first place among international arrivals to Spain’s city of Barcelona in 2017 with a 10.6 percent rise. Leisure tourism made up 60 percent of the reason to visit the city while business tourism clocked in at an 8.1 percent increase.
Turisme de Barcelona is promoting handcrafted products as souvenirs and partnering with museum shops to display local crafts through the Barcelona Shopping City scheme. Dubbed the Crafts as a Cultural Product route, the walking and coach itinerary of the shops of five of the city's leading museums and cultural spaces (the CCCB, MACBA, Casa de les Puntxes, the Egyptian Museum of Barcelona, the Joan Miró Foundation and Poble Espanyol) will explore crafts as a cultural element complementing the museum experience. Currently, this route is on request as an "à la carte" experience to be requested in advance for small groups.
In other news, Joan Torrella was appointed as new managing director of the promotion consortium. Among his goals, he is expected to introduce more public-private collaboration among tourism interests.