Turisme de Barcelona Celebrates the International Women's Day With an Action to Support the Role of Women in the Tourism Industry

Turisme de Barcelona commemorates the International Women's Day with different actions, with the main purpose to highlight the women's role in the tourism industry. In this sense, the Consortium will launch three different complementary actions to celebrate March 8th, with the main purpose of impressing during the day where the women's role is claimed as well as to promote the worldwide equal opportunities. A Women's Itinerary through Ciutat Vella (the old part of the city), a viral action in social media with different working women's voice emphasizing the main challenge that the tourism industry has to deal with and the visualisation of the International Women's Day in the home of VisitBarcelona website, will be the main actions of this initiative which pretends to share and to spread the international feminist view in the tourism industry with a special meaning.

As Marian Muro explains, the first female General Director of the Turisme de Barcelona Consortium, in the first video that will be posted in social media "the tourism industry is one of the main sectors where the women's role is more important: the 57% of the total population in Spain are women but, unfortunately, from this percentage only the 10% reaches to leadership positions and only the 3% are Managing Directors at the tourism companies. So, it means that tourism tends to be a gateway access for women, but the possibilities to reach high positions of responsibility are limited". Muro claims, in this sense, it's necessary "to work together to facilitate access to the high management positions and give a step forward to the new reality which is also a benefit to show that the women's role can contribute with a new vision but also with other qualities such as empathy or negotiation power which can help companies on the decision making but also to increase the efficiency between the 10% and the 15% when women are in the highest positions. We have to work together to move forward and make this possible". For the Consortium General Director it is still necessary a real change and deep effort to change the culture and the government policies in terms of equality, with government actions, legislation and financing addressed to the women's entrepreneurialism.

Viral Message: Which is the main challenge?

On 8th March morning, Turisme de Barcelona will publish different messages in short videos from different business women's which have been leaders in their fields and which have faced the challenge in a society where the main managing positions are still between men.

Ada Parellada (Semproniana Restaurant), Ester Boada (Bikemotions), Maria Abellanet (CETT Director), Nadia Arroyo (KBR Mapfre Director), Dolors Llonch (Can Calopa-La Olivera Coordinator), Yolanda Triviño (Valkiria), Anna Sánchez (Hotel Portafira Director) will express their point of view answering Which is the main challenge for women in the tourism industry according their experience.

Women of Ciutat Vella walk

Turisme de Barcelona will also launch a new route to discover Barcelona through women's eyes. This route includes places and points of view related with writers, saints, singers, doctors, intellectual, teachers, compositors, journalists or housewife's, any kind of women with any kind of conditions that have contributed to the history of Barcelona history and its society. Women who have worked for the equality avoiding gender discrimination. Some of them have been leaders in their fields such as, Dolors Aleu, the first Spanish woman graduated, or other so much popular as “La Moños” a popular figure of La Rambla. There are also women that have helped Barcelona in the international outreach such as the soprano Montserrat Caballé or the Barcelona's patron's saints Santa Eulàlia and Our Lady of Mercy (La Mercè), they each have their own festival, one in summer and the other one in winter. The "Women of Ciutat Vella" walk gives you the opportunity to find out about them and their associations with these streets and squares, as you visit the places that were part of their lives. Hereby you will find the to the route.

Women's tourist profile visiting Barcelona

In the other hand, tourism also offers a visitor's profile interested in knowing the city. Concerning women, the city of Barcelona is visited by a tourist (woman), aged of 36.7 years on average and mostly from the European Union for holiday reasons (71.5%) or just with their partner (31%). During their stay of 5.13 nights (on average) they are accommodated in a hotel (49%). Before the visit, they have checked information to plan their trip in websites (70.7%), where Booking is the most used (32.3%), followed by Google (25.9%) and Trip Advisor (17.8%).

The most demanded transportation to reach the city is the airplane (80%), booked directly with the airline (59.5%). In regards of the accommodation, the travel agencies and tour operators are more demanded (83.3%) where Booking and Airbnb are the most popular. We can also conclude that the 55% of women have booked with a minimum of one month in advance.

Their spend is about 352.14€ per person in the round-trip transportation, about 55.27€ per person and night in accommodation and about 310.93€ per person during their stay, where eat and drink is where they spend more.

The old part of the city is the most visited area, where La Rambla it becomes a must (78.5%), followed by Plaça Catalunya, Passeig de Gràcia (71.1%) and the Gothic Quarter (68.7%). In the same way, the 11% of women have made excursions outside Barcelona city during their stay (about one percentage point more than the average). In the assessment of the city, they highlight the architecture (9.4) and culture (9.0), both exceeding the general assessment of the city (8.8).