Leading tourism consulting and professional services firm BRAINTRUST has issued a new meetings industry report, where it has worked for the Spain Convention Bureau for another year, analyzing the evolution of the meetings industry in 2023 and estimating forecasts for 2024 and 2025.
Meetings industry reaches €13,367 million in 2023, growing 8.55% over 2019 and 28% over the previous year
According to data from the Spain Convention Bureau, prepared by BRAINTRUST, the network of local entities that currently groups 63 meeting destinations within the Spanish Federation of Municipalities and Provinces (FEMP), Spain closed a turnover of 13.367 million euros, which represents a growth of 8.55% over 2019 and 28.1% over the previous year, figures that were already being ventured by the sector, who had been confirming the strong pull of demand, which, coupled with high prices driven by inflation, represent a new record figure in Spain.
All forecasts have been exceeded, once the meetings have been given greater purpose and meaning for organizers and attendees, returning strongly to face-to-face attendance without neglecting their environmental footprint, and incorporating in most cases a positive impact on the destinations, with sustainability in its broadest sense of the word at the core of all their activities.
In the case of the number of travelers, the data show 10.36 million in 2023, representing 29.8% more than last year, and 1.5% over 2019, with an expected growth in 2024 of 3.6% reaching 10.73 million, and a new 4% in 2025 reaching the figure of 11.16 million.
For Ángel García Butragueño, Director of Tourism at BRAINTRUST: "The impact of the meetings industry is not only at an economic level, fostering a dignified and continued employability, promoting equality, inclusivity, and breaking the seasonal precariousness that we have traditionally known in tourism in our country. We have however some challenges to address such as the incorporation of sustainability and legacy, the digitization of the entire ecosystem, and the revitalization of talent, increasingly scarce in the world of tourism. Although new opportunities also appear on the horizon that we will have to know how to maximize, the aforementioned sustained growth, the optimization of the increasingly internationally recognized Spain brand and the professionalization of people and companies, whose role is essential to continue making this robust industry a reference for our country. In this path, the role of the Spain Convention Bureau is critical, given its role as an integrator of the offer of its associated destinations, and its specialization in promotion and communication, joining efforts and optimizing synergies of all the Convention Bureaus and their associates at a local level, work that it carries out with great success".
Average spending rises to 351.9 euros, three times higher than the average leisure tourist's expenditure
The average daily expenditure per traveler rises in 2023 to 351.9 euros, which, although amplified by the inflation effect, already far exceeds the expenditure of 2019, where it stood at 319.2 euros. This average expenditure three times higher than the average daily expenditure of the leisure tourist should convey the imperative need to convey to political bodies and public and private organizations, the contribution of meetings to the economy of destinations, compared to other types of travelers such as holiday travelers.
For José Manuel Brell, Partner in charge of the Quantitative Studies and Models practice, and of the Tourism and Leisure Industry at BRAINTRUST: "The meetings industry continues its climb, beating all records, making it an economic bulwark of tourism as a whole. Spain will continue to grow even above the world average, taking advantage of an economic growth ahead of the nearest advanced countries, which continue to be the fundamental fishing ground for our promotion and communication policies through the very important role played by the Spain Convention Bureau, a section specialized in MICE tourism belonging to the Spanish Federation of Municipalities and Provinces, which promotes the exchange of experiences and information in this tourism sector among the 63 associated municipalities. Our country must continue to be a leader in this segment of meeting travel, and it is in our hands to work tirelessly to realize all the potential within our reach.
