"The year 2009 has been hard for the meetings industry, including in Spain of course," says the director of the BCB, Airy Garrigosa. The lessons learned include the following:

- Strength of the association sector (+0.7% of attendees), which confirms it is more predictable and less cyclical than the corporate one. Interestingly, the number of events fell by 25%, but they were larger.

- The difficulty of the corporate sector (-37.7% of attendees), which is explained by reductions in budgets, and the tendency to organise events closer to home (for cost or image reasons).

- In terms of sectors, medical congresses confirm their weight (33%), followed by scientific ones (22%) and technological (12%).

- In terms of geographical origins, despite the acute crisis that it went through, the United Kingdom continues to lead with 24% of the total, followed by the USA (18.5%).

Taking optimism Garrigosa Airy adds that "this 2010 looks better, with many RFPs, although in general very short term”. The city has confirmed for this year five meetings of more than 10,000 attendees, including the Mobile World Congress, and congresses of urology, respiratory diseases, or gastroenterology. The city continues to lead the rankings of cities for international meetings: number 5 according to the UIA and number 3 according to ICCA, in 2008.