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The Lloret Convention Bureau is strengthening its position in the French market with various promotional activities in Toulouse and Paris

In the first quarter of the year, the Lloret Convention Bureau, an organisation dedicated to the promotion of meetings and events tourism in Lloret de Mar, is carrying out various promotional activities in France, one of its strategic markets. Montse Belisario, director of the Lloret Convention Bureau, explains that “our proximity to the border, combined with a good public-private offer, makes us a very attractive destination, especially for companies and agencies from the south of France. As in previous years, within the framework of the 2024 Action Plan, we have carried out our own actions, which have allowed us to present the destination in a much more personalised way, with very good results”. With this in mind, the Lloret Convention Bureau travelled to Toulouse with six of its members (Evenia Hotels, Hotel L’Azure, Hotel Santa Marta, Hotel Sant Pere del Bosc, Rosamar Hotels and Hotel Rigat), where they met with twelve event organisers in the city and were able to present the new Lloret Experiences web platform, which offers incentive and team-building activities for companies in different sectors (food and wine, nature and sport, health and wellness, culture and tradition, sustainability and CSR). The event consisted of a presentation and a networking lunch, which has already resulted in two direct business enquiries.

On the 13th of March, the Lloret Convention Bureau, accompanied by its members Evenia Hotels and Hotel L’Azure, also participated in a presentation organised by the Costa Brava Girona Convention Bureau in Paris, where it met eight event organisers who showed great interest in the destination’s new features.

In 2023, Lloret de Mar will host a number of events organised by French companies, such as the Pierre Fabre pharmaceutical congress, the Osmozis platform congress, the Iseki tractor congress and the incentive for a technology company organised by the Alcevents agency.

The positioning strategy of the Lloret Convention Bureau for 2024 in the French market will be completed in the autumn with a promotional campaign with the event agencies of the cities of Lyon, Paris and Marseille.

Lloret Turisme takes part in the Shooting Locations Marketplace, the largest gathering of national and international location scouts in Spain

Lloret Turisme, through the Lloret Film Office, the department responsible for advising and managing film shoots in Lloret de Mar, is at the Shooting Locations Marketplace in Valladolid yesterday and today, where it is meeting with various national and international location scouts and producers to promote the destination’s potential for the audiovisual sector. The meeting is in the format of a workshop with individual interviews, which, in the words of the manager of Lloret Turisme, Elizabeth Keegan: “It allows us to offer a more personalised service to such a target audience as location scouts and producers, key players in attracting film shoots. Lloret de Mar’s strengths as a filming destination include the fact that we are one of the closest towns on the Costa Brava to Barcelona, with unique beaches and coves, a very interesting and attractive hotel and service infrastructure, and professional management for over 17 years through the Lloret Film Office”.

Some of the localisers and producers interviewed are: Scott Trimble, American director and localiser for projects such as Star Trek, Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles and Iron Man 2, and who has won awards for his work on films such as Transformers and Mission Impossible 3; Mika Sito, American production manager for Tenet and Red Alert; Jasmina Torbati, American production manager for All Quiet on the Western Front and 13 Hours: The Secret Soldiers of Benghazi; or with the also American localiser Andrea Keener, who has worked for various Disney productions. In addition, the Lloret Film Office also had the opportunity to meet with Catalan localisers and production assistants who already know the destination and its potential well and who play a key role when these productions arrive in the region, as well as with localisers from Madrid with whom it was able to establish new synergies.

This action by the Lloret Film Office coincides with the recent Comic Con Costa Brava, a themed convention with actors and actresses, cosplayers and technology and merchandising companies related to the series Game of Thrones, The Hobbit, Stranger Things and Stars Wars, which was held this past weekend in Lloret de Mar and was attended by some 1,500 people. The driving force and organiser of this event is Alec Utgoff, an actor known for his role as Alexei in Stranger Things, who lives in Lloret de Mar.

In addition, this summer Lloret also premiered the first themed tour inspired by the filming of the Game of Thrones prequel, House of the Dragon, in the Santa Clotilde Gardens, which sold out in July and August.

The Lloret Film Office was founded in 2006 and is a member of the Catalunya Film Commission. Every year it hosts around forty audiovisual productions, including series shoots, film scenes and photo shoots, including Uncharted (2020), House of the Dragon (2021) and Mrs. Davis (2022). This autumn it was scheduled to host a large-scale shoot again, in this case for a series for the Apple TV platform, but scriptwriters’ strikes in the USA have put it on hold until further notice.

Lloret de Mar focuses its promotional activities in Ireland for the first quarter of 2024

As part of its 2024 Action Plan, Lloret Turisme continues to focus on strategic promotion in the Irish market, with various actions aimed at further positioning the destination in this market. Elizabeth Keegan, manager of Lloret Turisme, explains that “in just one year, the Irish market in Lloret de Mar has seen a 51.5% increase in the number of travellers and a 45.5% increase in the number of overnight stays, which clearly shows that this is a market with a growing interest in the destination”. In total, Lloret de Mar welcomed 15,502 travellers and 94,254 overnight stays in 2023.

Among the strengths of the Irish market strategy are the good connections with Girona Costa Brava Airport and the four Irish airports of Knock, Cork, Shannon and Dublin from April to October; the year-round flight between Belfast (Northern Ireland) and Girona; and the visitor profile, as this is a market that visits the destination mainly with families and couples in the pre- and post-season months. In addition, the big data indicators of Lloret Turisme’s tourism intelligence platform highlight Ireland as one of the potentially interesting markets to invest in over the coming years.

From the 26th to the 28th of January, Lloret Turisme was present in the Catalonia stand at the Holiday World Show, a fair that is dedicated to professionals on the first day and to the general public on the remaining days. It also participated in the “Meet the Media” event on the 7th of February, aimed at journalists and content creators, where it met around thirty professionals. Last year, Lloret Turisme also took part and, as a result of the contacts made, organised a press trip at the end of September with the Irish Daily Star, Northern Ireland Travel News, The Herald and the content creators of All about Rosa Lilla. The evaluation of these actions has been very positive and the director of Lloret Turisme points out that “with a view to 2023, we have noticed a significant increase in awareness of the destination in Ireland, undoubtedly due to the strategy developed by Lloret Turisme in conjunction with leading tour operators, media and influencers in the country”.

Finally, last week Lloret Turisme travelled to Ireland to participate in the TTR Spring Roadshow, which took place in the cities of Belfast, Dundalk and Waterford from the 20th to the 22nd of February, where it continued to present the destination’s new products and services to the nearly 100 tour operators and travel agents present in the three cities.

Lloret Convention Bureau presents the web platform that promotes Lloret de Mar’s team building and incentive proposals for corporate events

Around forty people attended today’s presentation of the “Lloret Experiences” platform, the first website dedicated exclusively to promoting and raising the profile of team building activities and corporate events in Lloret de Mar. This initiative is being promoted by the Lloret Convention Bureau, a public-private organisation that currently has more than 50 members and specialises in providing a service for meetings and events tourism. The tourism councillor, Frederic Guich, emphasised that “Lloret de Mar has a privileged natural and cultural environment, as well as a wide range of companies that offer activities to enjoy it, and this platform combines these two added values”.

The different incentive and team-building proposals are presented in different categories according to the interests of the organisers: food and wine, culture and tradition, leisure, nature and sport, health and wellness, and sustainability and CSR. Some examples are the Olympics, which combines a series of teambuilding activities with rowing with the traditional llaguts, a sport deeply rooted in Lloret de Mar; Sips of home, which highlights the history of the daiquiri in the city with a cocktail tasting; and an escape room at the Maritime Museum.

Each of the categories includes information sheets on the different activities, with descriptions, photos, approximate duration, maximum number of people, languages available and company contact details. In the words of Montse Belisario, director of the Lloret Convention Bureau, “this is a tool designed to meet the needs of event organisers, unique and differentiating, and we are convinced that it will be of great use to our clients, who are increasingly looking for unique experiences rooted in the region”.

The platform also includes the new Lloret Experiences video, an inspiring audiovisual piece that includes real examples of business events organised in Lloret de Mar in recent years.

 

Lloret Experiences website: https://experiences.lloretdemar.org/

Lloret Experiences video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EELiBuGKdWM

Lloret Turisme is taking part in various promotional activities in the Benelux market this April

The Benelux is one of Lloret de Mar‘s strategic markets, and in this sense Lloret Turisme has once again planned a series of promotional activities aimed at presenting the city’s modern character, as well as the diversity of what Lloret de Mar has to offer as an urban sun and beach destination, where you can enjoy culture, nature, sport and gastronomy.

From the 18th to the 21st of April, Lloret Turisme, through its commercial representation in the Benelux, is organising an influencer trip, made up of four influencers from the Netherlands and Belgium (Karen Michiels, Sigrid of the Sun, Lissete van Beek and Wanderlust), who, accompanied by a videographer, will generate and publish different content about their experiences in Lloret de Mar, both on their social networks and on their blogs. Lloret Turisme has put together a full programme that includes a visit to the Santa Clotilde Gardens with a daiquiri workshop, visits to the Lloret Castle, the Santa Cristina and Sant Pere del Bosc sites, as well as various nature activities such as a pitch and putt masterclass, a kayak trip and a walk along the new section of the coastal path. The programme also includes an Indiano route with a visit to Can Font, wine tasting, a guided tour of Tossa de Mar, where they will arrive by boat, and a night out at one of Lloret de Mar’s leading nightlife venues. In the words of Elizabeth Keegan, manager of Lloret Turisme, “In order to take advantage of and encourage maximum content generation, we have put together a very comprehensive programme that shows the attractions of Lloret de Mar and its value proposition from different perspectives, whether from a cultural, natural or gastronomic point of view, highlighting the renovation of the accommodation facilities and some of the new restaurants and activities on offer. The action with these influencers will allow us to create a much more real, experiential and immediate story that will be much more inspiring”. This activity will be complemented by a social media campaign in the Benelux and a press release with news about the destination for 2024.

This week, Lloret Turisme also travelled to the south of the Netherlands to take part in an event organised by the Costa Brava Girona Tourist Board at the Beekse-Bergen Animal Park, which was specifically aimed at family tourism and was attended by 21 travel agents and 16 media representatives from this market. From the rest of the region, in addition to Lloret de Mar, Roses, Calonge-Sant Antoni, Platja d’Aro, Blanes and the Girona Camping Association also took part.

 

Tourism Figures Benelux Market 2023

The Benelux market, consisting of Belgium, the Netherlands and Luxembourg, will account for more than 10% of the total number of overnight stays in Lloret de Mar in 2023, making it the second international market with the largest presence in Lloret de Mar, after the United Kingdom. It has also been one of the most loyal traditional European markets during the post-pandemic period.

 

Belgium

Travelers:               51,205 (4’40%)

Overnights:          289,783 (5.43%)

 

Netherlands

Travelers:              45,216 (3.57%)

Overnights:         251,103 (4.70%)