Barcelona, permanent venue for the Mobile World Congress

Barcelona will no longer only be the main venue for the Mobile World Congress (MWC) until 2030, but now has an automatic renewal of the award for this great event. This was agreed by the GSMA (the mobile phone industry’s employers’ association), Fira de Barcelona, the Catalan government, the Generalitat, and the city councils of Barcelona and Hospitalet de Llobregat.

The contract includes that the expansion of the MWC site must be completed by 2026. The GSMA has also guaranteed that the city’s hoteliers will reserve some 25,000 hotel rooms each year for visitors to this important event at pre-agreed prices. The next MWC is expected to attract between 70,000 and 80,000 attendees. Hoffman said that the last edition, this past winter – the first after the pandemic – had an impact of some 267 million, 27 million more than initially expected.

On the other hand, the general director of the Barcelona Fair, Constantí Serrallonga, recalled that until now the administrations contributed 15 million in the year (five million from the State, five million from the Generalitat, and five million from the Barcelona City Council) and that this figure, frozen since 2012, will be updated upwards from 2025 due to concepts such as inflation, up to eight million in the year so that the joint contribution will be 24 million.