Barcelona, the world’s most popular international conference city in 2018

The latest report by the International Congress and Convention Association (ICCA) states that Barcelona was the best-attended conference city in the world last year, as it welcomed 135,000 delegates. Catalonia’s capital is now at the top of the list ahead other European business hubs like Paris, Vienna, Munich and Berlin.

In 2018, Barcelona hosted 163 international meetings, which places the Catalan capital in the fourth position on the list of cities that hosted most conferences. To this extent, according to figures from the Barcelona Convention Bureau, last year global conferences brought 1.9 billion euros to the local economy as the number of overnight stays increased by 7.4% while their average length reached five days for the first time.

Although 2019 has just begun, Barcelona has already broken a record on attendees in the mobile technology most important congress globally, the Mobile World Congress. In just four days, Fira de Barcelona welcomed 109,000 people, 2,000 more than the year before and the best figures of the whole history of the convention.

Furthermore, next week Barcelona will host the Bio€quity Europe event for the first time. The most relevant European investors’ meeting in the biomedicine field is expected to gather over 550 international delegates from 20 different countries.