Nearly 200 representatives of companies and institutions related to the tourism of congresses, incentives and events gathered at the Palacio de Congresos y Exposiciones de Galicia, in Santiago, for the celebration of the Galician MICE sector, a meeting that also served to make a presentation of the Galicia MICE project, launched in 2016, in which OPCs, hotels and spaces for events come together to promote the Community as an ideal destination for this type of activities. Galicia MICE has the support of the Galician Tourism Cluster, whose president, Cesáreo Pardal, stressed the heterogeneity and relevance of this sector, the backbone for tourism in Galicia as a whole, as well as the importance of continuing to work in public-private cooperation.
The director of Tourism of Galicia, Nava Castro, also highlighted this cooperation between the private sector and the administrations while highlighting the support of the Xunta to the organization of Congresses through the line of aid just approved by the Xunta. Finally, the president of OPC Galicia, Ana Trevisani, for her part, took a look at the history of the Galicia MICE brand and highlighted the turnover of the sector in Spain, which the Spain Convention Bureau (SCB) has recently estimated at 6,600 million euros, with 4.3 million attendees and 25,800 events, while highlighting the advantages of Galicia to be among the first destinations chosen to organize congresses nationally.
“Galicia offers the sector serious, loyal, efficient, hard-working professionals and also has that extra that every organiser wants: sensations and experiences. We are a solvent destination that faces some problems, such as the relative ignorance of our work or those arising from the connectivity of Galicia with respect to other points,” explained Trevisani.
Professional meetings
The celebration of the celebration of the Galician MICE sector closes the program of activities that this week developed Galicia Mice with ten tour operators from the rest of Spain and Europe, who have had the opportunity to know several ideal locations for organizing large conferences and events, in addition to tour the tourist attractions of the cities of A Coruña and Santiago de Compostela. As part of the programme, meetings have been held between foreign operators and 50 businessmen from the two cities, representing various related sectors.