Benidorm, elected venue of the Annual General Meeting of the Spain Convention Bureau in 2019

Benidorm will host the Annual General Meeting of the Spain Convention Bureau of 2019, of which 56 conference destinations are part, thus taking over from Las Palmas de Gran Canaria. The city has been chosen as the venue for this meeting, the most important in the MICE sector at the national level, after winning the vote made by the members of the body during the Annual Assembly that yesterday and today has been held in the island capital.

The mayor, Toni Pérez, has been in charge of defending the candidacy of Benidorm, which has been measured in the final phase to La Coruña. In his speech, Pérez said that although "the product of congresses and meetings is not the highest percentage of activity of our destination", Benidorm has become "an important place in the MICE tourism market" -Meetings, Incentives, Conventions and Exhibitions- thanks to different factors such as the breakdown of seasonality, the progressive increase of the offer and the "notoriety acquired by the celebration of important events of great importance", the last of them the V General Assembly of the World Federation of People Deafblind and the 11th Helen Keller World Conference, which was attended by her Majesty Queen Doña Letizia.

Pérez recalled that Benidorm's participation in the Spain Convention Bureau dates back to 1984 and that this is the first occasion in which the city considers "the challenge of receiving in our destination the celebration of the meeting." At the time of decanting the balance to Benidorm, referred to "the excellent conditions of infrastructures of communication, accommodation and congresses", and stressed that in view of the appointment of 2019 the city introduces "a differential element" that constitutes "an opportunity for all": the celebration "of the First Technical Conference on Smart Tourist Destination and Congress Tourism".

Pérez recalled that Benidorm aspires to be "the first destination in the world certified as Smart Tourism Destination (DTI)", and added that the Annual Meeting of the Spain Convention Bureau can be a magnificent space to address the possibilities offered by new technologies to the MICE segment, and in which the city would present its "experience" and the steps that have been taken in terms of sustainability, accessibility, governance and innovation linked to the DTI.

Before defending the candidacy of Benidorm to host the next Annual Assembly, the mayor participated yesterday at a table on 'Urban tourism Cities to live or visit?' With the mayor of Las Palmas de Gran Canaria and president of the Spain Convention Bureau, Augusto Hidalgo; and the president of the Tourism Commission of the Spanish Federation of Municipalities and Provinces (FEMP), José Hila.