According to the Almeria Convention Bureau, Almeria’s local MICE industry generated more than six million euros in 2007, with the organisation of 31 events attended by 7,220 delegates, who made a total of 21,840 overnight stays.
For this reason, the province’s hospitality industry has shown great interest in this type of tourism, owing to the fact that the daily spending of delegates is much higher than that of conventional tourists.
In the words of Lazaro Lopez, president of the Almeria Convention Bureau, the growth of the province’s MICE industry is due in part to the hotels and facilities that were built for the 2005 Mediterranean Games, arguing that the demand always adjusts itself to the offer, and the more facilities that a city or province has the better. In addition, he believes that the city’s future connection to the Spain’s high-speed train network will have a considerable impact on Almeria’s MICE potential. Likewise, Lopez opines that the local MICE industry’s recent growth justifies the building of a congress centre in the city’s Mediterranean Avenue, the City Council already having commissioned Norman Foster to design the venue.
