The Spanish government has decided to step up the promotion of the country as a scientific congresses destination, since it considers that there is room for increasing the number of events of this type currently held in Spain and, above all, for improving the overall experience of delegates by incorporating value added tourist activities in the traditional congress programme.
Scientific congresses are an essential activity for the scientific community, and second only to scientific journals as a communication channel for researchers. For this reason, promoting Spain as an international scientific meeting, conference and congress destination is among the measures taken by the special cabinet meeting on tourism held in Palma de Mallorca on 12 July.
Along these lines, the mechanisms for promoting tourism at international scientific meetings, seminars, conferences and congresses held in Spain were analyzed. Likewise, Turespaña will include emblematic photos that highlight the country’s image of progress and modernity in its promotional activities. In addition, Turespaña and the Ministry of Science and Innovation will co-ordinate their participation in tourism and scientific forums with the aim of optimizing results.
According the latest figures for 2007, provided by the Spain Convention Bureau, Spain hosted a total of 2,733 congresses, 6,079 conventions and 9,625 seminars. Out of this total, 22.31% were related to the medical/health industry, second only to the financial/business sector.
This ranking has been, however, heavily influenced by cities with less than one million inhabitants and their specific weight in the market, since in larger cities the medical/health industry is ranked first (30,68%), while the financial/business sector represents 11,93% of all events.
