The meetings industry in Spain grows by 7% and exceeds 14,000 million euros

The meetings industry spent 14,296 million euros in Spain in 2024, 7% more than the previous year. For this year, a volume of 14,868 million euros is forecast for 2025. Similarly, travelers in 2024 exceed 10.5 million, and will continue to rise in the coming years, while the average daily expenditure rises to 378.9 euros, according to the latest study by Braintrust.

According to data from the Spain Convention Bureau, prepared by Braintrust, Spain closed the year with a turnover of 14.296 million euros, representing 7% growth over the previous year and more than 16% over 2019, leaving behind any comparison with pre-pandemic spending levels.

These figures confirm the strong pull of demand that, coupled with rising prices, represent a new record number in Spain, according to the network of local entities that currently groups 65 meeting destinations within the Federación Española de Municipios y Provincias (FEMP).

In the future years, it is expected that the figures will continue to rise, while pursuing other important objectives such as giving meetings greater purpose and meaning for organizers and attendees, continuing to make progress in the sustainability of events, and incorporating and making visible the positive impact that the meetings industry generates in the destinations.

In the case of number of travelers, the data show 10.54 million in 2024, representing a 1.7% increase over last year, and 3.2% over 2019. Additionally, sustained growth of 1.5%-2% per year is expected in the coming years, reaching 10.91 million meeting travelers in 2026.

For Angel G. Butragueño, director of Tourism at Braintrust: “The meetings industry is consolidating as a fundamental bulwark of the economyía in destinations, growing notably, and with an upward trend, exercising as a transforming element of the tourism model so longed for in Spainña”.

According to the authors of the report, “Spainña continues to be a leading destination worldwide in meetings, with several destinations already in the top positions of the world ranking, maximizing growth while managing its own model towards new times, setting itself up as a reference of sustainable industry in the broadest sense of the word worldwide”.

AVERAGE SPENDING

The average daily expenditure per traveler rises in 2024 to 378.9 euros. Although it isá mainly based on the rise in prices, it already far exceeds spending in 2019, where it stood at ?319.2 and marks a récord in the historical series analyzed.

This figure is three times higher than the average daily expenditure of leisure tourists and, according to the report, “should convey the imperative need to know how to communicate to all stakeholders involved in one way or another with the sector the value of the meetings industry as a generator of quality tourism and as a driver of economic, social and environmental improvements in the medium and long term in the destinations that drive it”.

For José Manuel Brell, partner in charge of the Quantitative Studies and Models practice, and of the Tourism and Leisure Industry at Braintrust, “it is a model of éIt is a successful model, since it acts as an economic, cultural, social and environmental dynamizer in the 65 destinations registered through the Federación Española de Municipios y Provincias, where the Spain Convention Bureau” is located.