Catalonia is the number one tourist destination in Spain. Still, it is already a mature destination, with a high concentration in Barcelona and the coast during the summer. The result: many people in the same place simultaneously.

This leads to an increasingly low-cost demand and intense pressure: concentration, overcrowding, degradation of the territory, and gentrification that put in crisis a model that affects the value proposition and society in general.

But how could Catalonia change its tourism model when the results were good?

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We needed to generate a more environmentally friendly demand to help us renew our tourism offer. The aim was to move towards a more sustainable and responsible tourism, not only from an environmental perspective but also from an economic and social point of view. We wanted to get our tourism businesses on board.

We opted for a long-term strategy: convincing companies could be complex, but we knew that supply continually adapts to demand.

We are working on a communication strategy to deconcentrate tourism in the territory, attract a higher quality visitor, increase average daily expenditure and diversify our tourism experiences.

To achieve this, we are progressively increasing annual investment, diversifying campaigns and messages, de-seasonalising investment, defining key markets based on their demand linked to sustainable tourism and their purchasing power, focusing on micro-segmentation of advertising content related to the interests of 32 different visitors, and changing the mix to reach 80% of investment in the digital environment by adapting our digital ecosystem.