Benidorm, venue in February of the 35th OPC Spain Congress that will bring together 200 event organization professionals

Benidorm will host the 35th OPC Spain Congress from February 23 to 25; an appointment that will bring together in the city around 200 professionals from the organization of congresses and events, and that the mayor, Toni Pérez, presented today at Fitur; the president of the Federation of OPC Spain, Matilde Almandoz; and her counterpart from the regional association OPCE Comunitat Valenciana, José Vicente Castaño

The mayor pointed out that "having this congress event is an opportunity to reinforce our position in the MICE segment and to make our destination and wide tourist offer known precisely to the professionals who are in charge of organizing congresses and events throughout the national territory ”.

The congress will be held at Luxor Convention Center, located in Terra Mítica, and will be the first in the sector in recent years to take place without restrictions. In addition to the support of the City Council and Visit Benidorm, the congress has the collaboration of Turisme Comunitat Valenciana and the Costa Blanca Tourist Board.

As explained by the organization, basically the two hundred participants are members of the 16 associations and delegations belonging to the National Federation of OPC, as well as entities that are part of the MICE Forum collective. The autonomous federation of OPC is in charge of organizing the Congress, which returns to Valencian lands 12 years after its last appointment in Elche.

The congress program, which has already opened registrations on the web https://opc2023.es, will revolve mainly around the experience. The sessions and workshops will focus on analyzing and improving the experience of congressmen and organizers from a multitude of points of view: from technology, with the irruption of digital alternatives for meetings or digital fatigue, to more management or psychological aspects. Thus, the role of digitization as a transfer channeling tool will be addressed, as well as the present and future of artificial intelligence augmented reality and the metaverse and how all this will affect MICE tourism.

The intense scientific program will be combined with a complementary one that will allow attendees to learn about Benidorm's MICE resources and enjoy playful and experiential actions in Benidorm and its surroundings.

Toni Pérez stressed that "in addition to being a leader and benchmark in sun and sand, our destination is increasingly and better positioned in other tourist segments such as MICE tourism, with an offer that has not stopped growing, both in spaces and in public and private resources.

In fact, "Benidorm has more and more spaces and hotel rooms focused on congress tourism, which constitutes a very interesting segment due to its deseasonalizing potential and the tourist spending it generates." Thus, he has specified, congress appointments usually take place during the low tourist season and the profile of the congress client usually spends more than that of the conventional visitor, even doubling it.

Recently the offer of MICE spaces has increased with the smaller room of the cultural center of Benidorm, with a capacity for around 450 people, and that "we are determined that it will become an important pole of attraction and capture of new congress appointments".