Home NEWS Turisme de Barcelona launches its Legacy Program

Turisme de Barcelona launches its Legacy Program

The new legacy team at BCB is already working on the first four congresses for 2025

Feb 22, 2025

barcelona_spain — Photo: Barcelona Convention Bureau

The new Barcelona Convention Bureau Legacy Program will work to create positive impact derived from events in the medium and long term.

Turisme de Barcelona takes a step forward in its strategy to generate value in the city through the events and congresses it hosts with the creation of the new Barcelona Convention Bureau Legacy Program. This new program, presented to the members of the Barcelona Convention Bureau yesterday, aims to generate long-term positive effects in the city and the region through the congresses and events hosted by the city. By creating synergies and collaborations between local stakeholders and congress associations, the program seeks to develop projects that have a positive impact on Barcelona, its inhabitants, and its business and research sectors.

As explained by BCB’s director, Christoph Tessmar, “the point is to generate an impact that has a lasting effect beyond the event itself, to share and promote knowledge, professional connections, and to drive scientific and technological advancements within the framework of the economic development of the sector”. For this, Turisme de Barcelona has created a new department within BCB to develop such projects, working closely with the different associations and organizers of the congresses. This new team is already working on four big congresses this year, three in the medical field and one in the nutraceutical industry. The first congress is ESGE, from the Society of Gastrointestinal Endoscopy, which will take place in April. The team is currently working in collaboration with the Spanish Association against Cancer (AECC) in creating and designing this legacy project, aligning the congress’ activity with the goals and needs of the city. Vitafoods in May, ECTRIMS in September and the World Stroke Conference in October are the other congresses with whom the Barcelona Convention Bureau is working to develop legacy projects this year.

As part of the services offered by the legacy program, BCB helps associations find the right local partners and evaluate the impact generated, offering comprehensive support in managing and communicating the project to ensure its success and visibility.

The Legacy Handbook

A handbook has been developed as part of the new Legacy Program for Barcelona, explaining the methodology and the necessary processes to allow for the development of the legacy project for every congress or event.

The projects can be classified into five different categories, ensuring that the impact is diversified in different fields:

1) economic diversification
2) community
3) knowledge-sharing
4) environmental
5) sectoral.

The program works to promote competitiveness, ensuring Barcelona’s positioning in the MICE sector by enhancing the positive impact of MICE activities in the city, considering local opportunities and the existing institutional framework. This involves establishing
communication and collaboration among various stakeholders in the implementation of
innovative proposals. Ultimately, it is about exploring and exploiting all the opportunities an event can generate, be it in the economic, scientific, business or innovation fields, while integrating with the city and its social network.

Barcelona Convention Bureau has established three different types of collaboration for those associations that want to develop a legacy project:

1) Creating a legacy project from the start.
2) Supporting the associations that have their own legacy project and want to
implement it in Barcelona.
3) Supporting those associations that want to leave a legacy or impact in the destination,
but do not have the resources to create their own legacy project, by connecting them with
already existing local projects that they can collaborate with.

Find out more about Turisme de Barcelona here.