Municipal Action Programme

Aware of the new situation, Barcelona City Council included the following objectives and lines of action in its Municipal Action Programme (MAP) drawn up for the period 2008-2011 and approved on 31st October 2008:

Line of action 3.8

Tourism

Mission

To strengthen Barcelona's appeal as a tourist destination and to reinforce its position worldwide, highlighting the aspects that make the city different and boosting quality tourism, while improving the mechanisms for managing the effects of tourism on the city in association with the local community and by conveying its positive factors.

3.8.1 Objective 1. To promote a tourism model which will strengthen the balance between local residents and tourists, while preserving the identity values of the city.

3.8.1.1. We will draw up a Tourism Strategic Plan in association with the sectors involved which will address the need to plan our capacity for hosting tourists and guarantee the quality and sustainability of the city's business sector.

3.8.1.2. We will analyse the city's capacity for hosting tourists in accordance with the characteristics of the public space in each neighbourhood and with regard to the impact of tourism.

3.8.1.3. We will promote cultural tourism based on the city's identifying elements such as the Catalan language, its status as regional capital, unique architectural heritage and Catalan cuisine.

3.8.1.4. We will promote tourism that includes civic-minded attitudes as a value for coexistence.

Barcelona City Council commissioned the Strategic Plan to Turisme de Barcelona, in view of its long-standing and valuable experience in promoting the city as a tourist destination. The Turisme de Barcelona Consortium places its activities within the framework of economic and social development and quality of life in Barcelona and works with criteria which will give impetus to and improve the current situation of the entire tourism sector.

The current situation and the experience of Turisme de Barcelona form the basis of the Strategic Plan, which provides the starting point for a reflection process on the city's tourism model which will be used to define the future strategies for action necessary to maintain and increase the interest of the community, economic sectors, institutions and visitors to the city. At the same time, the Plan wants to successfully involve the community in Barcelona's tourist plan, insofar as it seeks to lay the foundations for tourism model that will strengthen the balance between residents and visitors, preserving the city's values of identity and coexistence. The Strategic Plan will establish the actions to be taken by the different public and private agents that have an impact on the city's tourism sector in order to guarantee sustainable and continued success in the future.

The Strategic Plan was launched in the middle of 2008, and will remain in force until summer 2010.

Principles of the City of Barcelona Strategic Tourism Plan

In order to proceed with and give impetus to the reflection process on tourism and the city, the Strategic Plan has taken on board a raft of principles that have inspired and justified it from the very outset. The inspirational principles can be summarised in the points below:

> The city's identity

> Economic, social and environmental sustainability

> Cooperation and participation

> Territorial balance

> Quality, innovation and high-quality added value

> Gearing demand to the client

Working criteria and objectives

A series of core ideas and convictions regarding tourism and the city have been included in the work and modus operandi of the Strategic Plan from the very outset. In one way or another, this set of ideological approaches has defined the lines of action of the Plan, while proving its degree of commitment:

> First of all, the unitary concept of the terms tourism and city is key, based on the acceptance that one reality cannot be conceived without the other, but that both are constructed mutually.

> In the same vein, tourism should not just be understood as a mere economic sector, which is closed and independent, but as a cross-cutting reality which is embedded in the different economic, territorial, social and cultural facets of the city.

> The territorial vision of the tourism phenomenon becomes a basic conceptual premise which is essential when it comes to understanding and taking action, as the territorial implications (from an administrative, geographical or conceptual representation viewpoint) have a great impact on the tourism management and action model.

> It is essential to accept that the community plays an important role in the development of tourism in the city: the people of Barcelona are not actors on a simple static stage, but the active participants and creators of the city and, as a consequence, tourism. The health of the city's tourist activity stems from the well-being of its population, which must be the cause and effect of the successful development of Barcelona as a tourist destination. 

> Finally, and bearing in mind the economic and socio-cultural framework of major western cities in the 21st century and the global dynamics they are immersed in, it seems logical to understand that the visitors who are welcomed to great urban centres such as Barcelona do not fit in with the classic concept of the tourist. Nowadays, the appeal of urban centres lies in recreation, business, healthcare, training, work and culture, among many other facets. This is why the visitor profile does not fit in with the stereotypical tourist. Visitors to Barcelona are now the temporary visitors to the city, who use and consume it specifically according to their interests and length of stay.

Based on the inspirational principles, different criteria and starting points, the Strategic Plan is geared to two core working objectives, which focus on:

> Fostering improvements to tourist activity in Barcelona.

> Ensuring that tourism fits in better with the needs of the city.

In order to achieve its set objectives, the Plan focuses on four major proposals:

> To determine the impact and effects generated by tourism activity in the city itself, taking into account its different manifestations, in qualitative and quantitative terms.

> To reflect on the model of tourism in the city.

> To set the tourism development of Barcelona within a framework of sustainable growth.

> To foster the positive involvement of the community in the city's tourism project.

The objectives of any planning process must be measurable in time and, for this reason, must have a start and end point. This is why we propose that the Plan should establish future objectives and actions for the Horizon 2015, leaving open a permanent space for assessment and reflection on the evolution of Barcelona's tourism activity.

Benchmark plans, bodies and various institutions

Barcelona has long-standing experience in drawing up strategic plans, which make it possible to find out about and plan aspects of the current situation in an organised, consensual way.

From the very outset, the City of Barcelona Strategic Tourism Plan has used the Barcelona Metropolitan Strategic Plan as its benchmark. The Metropolitan Plan has recognised know-how and experience in the analysis and diagnosis of the current situation of Barcelona and its metropolitan area. The Tourism Plan also draws on the experiences of the Barcelona Metropolitan Territorial Plan, which analyses and identifies the dynamics concerning the occupation of the territory and the economic activities of the Barcelona metropolitan area, by setting challenges and possible scenarios for future evolution, from a socio-demographic and economic viewpoint.

Recently, the Catalan Government also defined its first Catalonia Tourism Strategic Plan, for the period 2005-2010 which seeks to boost and make more cost-effective the tourism resources of Catalonia as a destination. In 2007, the Spanish Government's Ministry of Tourism approved the Spanish Tourism Plan "Horizon 2020".

In addition to drawing on the know-how and experience of other strategic plans which are important to tourism in Barcelona, the Plan is also part of the dynamics and processes of the institutions and organisations in Barcelona that count tourism and the city among their spheres of interest. In this way, the City Advisory Board and the Barcelona Economic and Social Council are involved in the reflection process and work of the Strategic Plan, in the same way that these institutions incorporate the lines of thought and strategies of the Plan.

The City Advisory Board has set up a specific Working Commission to contribute its thoughts and discuss the diagnosis and strategic proposals of the Plan. This commission will issue its findings which will be presented at the plenary meeting of the City Advisory Board.

Together with the Strategic Plan, the Barcelona Economic and Social Council has convened a working group to look in depth at aspects of professionalism and quality.

Permanent liaison mechanisms with other institutions and bodies from the city and the country will be established during the process of the Plan, in order to share and line up the strategic objectives to ensure that tourism fits in with the needs of the city. The series of institutional links defined during the process of the Plan, will provide a way of sharing and nurturing the objectives and lines of work, and from this, we understand that forging these links is a fundamental part of the reflection process on tourism and the city.