Top 5 major changes to the Barcelona Events industry
Recently I read that the largest cruise ship in the world will move its home base to Barcelona from 2015 giving a boost of almost €30 million to the port and the city as a whole. I reflected on what a wonderful job Barcelona has done in re-inventing itself year on year whilst remaining true to it´s values of creativity, beauty, innovation and entrepreneurial spirit.
2014 marks our 11th anniversary of offering unique and creative events for the international and local corporate market so on this day we reflect on the changes that we have seen in the industry and how we have had to adapt in order to remain true to our values.
Vison is all important
Take a building like the famous Sagrada Famila, we can speculate for centuries about what ideas and plans Gaudi may have had for this masterpiece of
1. Faster turnaround times
2. Hotels… “We will handle ourselves”
Every year between January and March without fail we receive visits from many of the major hotel chains in Barcelona.
3. It’s gone viral in minutes
When we began Lifestyle Barcelona and LifestyleDMC in 2003, social media was not part of the event industry vernacular and good relationships were built over time, face to face meetings and client testimonials. Today with time as the most valuable commodity, we find clients can do their background searches minutes before even sending us an email.
4. Collaboration amongst the “competition”
A few years ago I wrote a post called collaboration is better than competition. I also started a linkedin group called The Spain events community. I have always believed that we get much further in business when we collaborate instead of compete. I am pleased to say that many professionals in the Barcelona Events industry are now following this philosopghy and seeing some fantastic results. Our industry, it has been said, is made up of nice people doing nice business, after 11 years in the industry I couldn´t agree more. A well placed team building or incentive event sees everyone winning, the clients, the delegates and the organising agency. The secret to a successfull collaboration is to know your own strengths and values and collaborate with companies that compliment them.
5. Structured learning Programs
Over the last 3 years structured learning programs have made a robust and welcome entry to our industry. We have been receiving requests to organise learning programs around topics of leadership, communication skills, conflict resolution, team building and efficiency within teams. For the last four years I have collaborated on several programs at one of the world’s top business schools IESE working on the MBA , Executive MBA, Global Executive MBA and bespoke corporate programs. These programs dove tail neatly into our range of offsite activities and stunning venues to offer our delegates a full immersion learning experience in Barcelona. We have observed the importance that past clients such as Nike and Pespico place on this type of event I think this is a real growing trend in the events industry as corporate companies seek to combine the fun element of an incentive trip with some structured learning frameworks and clearly measureable outcomes.
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