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1,600 UN staff take part in the UN Inter-Agency Games 2024 event in Lloret de Mar

From 23 to 27 October, Lloret de Mar will host the international UN Inter-Agency Games 2024, with more than 1,600 UN staff members from 120 different countries.

This is the 49th edition of these games, which began in Paris in 1968 and were held in the Algarve last year. Each year, a UN office is responsible for organising the event, and this year the organising institutions are based in Vienna.

The UN Inter-Agency Games bring together participants from different UN agencies with the aim of fostering friendship, cohesion, friendly competition and teamwork among UN staff. During their stay, they will take part in a wide range of sporting events at the various sports facilities in and around the city, including athletics, team sports such as football, basketball or handball, tennis and paddle tennis, and swimming. The opening ceremony took place today, 23 October, at the Gran Casino Costa Brava in Lloret de Mar.

During their stay, the participants will also be able to enjoy the cultural and natural heritage of Lloret de Mar, such as the Santa Clotilde Gardens and Lloret Castle, as well as visiting other attractions in the area, such as the city of Girona. In the words of the tourism councillor, Frederic Guich, “it is also an important boost for the area in the mid-season”.

This event was captured by the Lloret Turisme team as part of the Sports&Events workshop that Lloret de Mar will host in October 2023. Elizabeth Keegan, manager of Lloret Turisme, explains that “Lloret de Mar has a recognised track record in both the MICE segment and sports tourism, with the great strength of proximity and centrality between facilities, which allows us to offer a very attractive value proposition for this type of event”. Lloret Turisme has supported the logistical coordination of the event and liaised with other supra-municipal authorities in the area, such as the Costa Brava Girona Tourist Board, a partner of the event.

The HM Hospitales group is the official healthcare provider and offers medical support and preventive care and rehabilitation services at its facilities during the event. Since 2012, the HM Hospitales group has provided coverage in a specialized and personalized way to the international community, both to residents and to people traveling for work, education or tourism.

Lloret’s sports facilities are at full capacity for Easter, with more than 11,000 people attending the event

11,100 people, including athletes and accompanying persons, will spend these days in Lloret de Mar to enjoy various sporting events. Some of the tournaments have already started, such as the Lloret Cup handball tournament, with 2,000 participants and 600 supporters, and the first round of Globasket, with 1,060 athletes and 370 supporters.

These tournaments are followed by others that are also classics in the Easter sports calendar. One of them is the MIC, one of the most prestigious grassroots football competitions in the world, which will bring 2,000 people to the city. The other is the San Jaime Football Tournament, which will be held for the 44th time with 1,700 players and 500 supporters. There is also the Eurobasket “Tomàs Solà” tournament, with 350 people. Next week, the second round of the Globasket tournament will begin, with around 1,800 participants, as well as the Vila de Lloret International Petanque Tournament, with 800 participants in two rounds.

The majority of these are sports competitions with an educational character, which, in addition to the participation of local sportsmen and women, also attract a large number of foreign participants from different continents. Among the European countries represented are France, Germany, Norway, Denmark, England, Italy, Belgium, Poland, Sweden and Iceland. There will also be athletes from the Americas, Mexico and Canada.

The Councillor for Sport, Carlos Clos, is pleased with the number of athletes and their supporters, stressing that “Lloret de Mar will be the capital of sport for these days, with visitors from all over the world filling our facilities and bringing life and colour to the city”. For his part, the Councillor for Tourism, Frederic Guich, explained that “Easter is the culmination of a very good first quarter of sporting events, especially in football, cycling and triathlon”.

In addition to the Easter events, the 250 sports stays registered from January to April are also noteworthy, representing an increase of 7% compared to the same period in 2023. A total of 7,740 people will be staying in the destination for these stays, in various disciplines such as football, swimming, athletics, basketball and triathlon. Of particular note is the increase in the number of triathlon stays, which has doubled in the same months compared to 2023: from 26 stays to 51, with a majority of French athletes.

Since 2006, Lloret de Mar has been certified as a Sports Tourism Destination for football, athletics, cycling, swimming, team sports and triathlon.

Lloret de Mar hosts the second edition of Sports & Events, the most important international workshop dedicated to sports tourism in the sector

From yesterday, 24th October, until 26th October, Lloret de Mar is the venue for the 2nd Sports & Events Workshop, an event organised by Eventoplus with the support of Lloret Turisme and the collaboration of the Costa Brava Girona Pyrenees Tourist Board and the Catalan Tourism Agency.

Lloret de Mar will become the international epicentre of sports tourism, bringing together around seventy buyers from more than 20 different countries specialising in sports tourism; specific agencies for events and sports stays, and incentive and meeting agencies from European countries such as Austria, Belgium, Croatia, Denmark, Finland, Italy, Norway, Switzerland, Sweden, Holland, the United Kingdom and Spain, among others, will have the opportunity to hold scheduled one-to-one meetings with around seventy destinations and accommodations specialising in sports tourism, also at an international level.

Lloret de Mar has the participation of Lloret Turisme and the Lloret Convention Bureau on the public sector side, and on the private sector side, L’Azure hotel, Guitart hotels, Rosamar hotels, Santa Marta hotel, Gammarus Restaurant & Beach Club and the incoming agency Traveltec. In the words of the councillor for tourism, Frederic Guich, “Having 70 international sports tourism buyers at home is the best way to showcase our specialised offer, both in terms of equipment and facilities and the natural environment, which allow us to practice indoor and outdoor sports disciplines, as well as our specialised offer in accommodation and services, and at the same time it is a powerful showcase to consolidate our brand as a sports tourism destination in the professional sector”. The first edition of this international Sports & Events workshop took place last May in Valencia with great success.

A high percentage of these international buyers specialise in organising training camps in different sports, one of the categories of sports tourism for which Lloret de Mar is most in demand. Furthermore, in recent years the Lloret Convention Bureau has been promoting this Meetings&Events line of work, which combines the destination’s specialised offer in the field of meetings and congresses with experiential sports incentives that promote values such as teamwork and cohesion. In the words of the Councillor for Tourism, “Sports tourism and meetings and events tourism complement each other well, and in Lloret de Mar we are fortunate to have a specialised offering of both products”.

In addition to the two days of meetings, which take place at the L’Azure hotel, participants have a full experiential programme that includes the discovery of the destination in terms of sports, gastronomy and complementary activities to encourage contact between buyers and sellers, such as hiking along the new section of the coastal path, the Indiano route, the immersive experience of Lloret Castle, road cycling and mountain biking routes and the orienteering race with wine tasting in the Sant Pere del Bosc area.

Since 2006, Lloret de Mar has been certified as a Sports Tourism Destination for football, athletics, cycling, swimming, team sports and triathlon. The municipality currently has 12 accommodation companies and 2 incoming agencies certified in sports tourism by the Catalan Tourism Agency, as well as 17 establishments and 2 incoming agencies certified in cycle tourism.

Football weekend in Lloret de Mar

Lloret de Mar continues to host sporting events at its municipal facilities. This weekend, football will take centre stage with two major events: Futbol-In and the AFIA World Cup Espanha 2024.

Futbol-In

Futbol-In arrives this weekend 24, 25 and 26 May in Lloret de Mar, Blanes and Vidreres with around 1,200 players, 400 coaches, 6 playing fields and 4,000 accompanying persons. A competition format of 8 groups with 5 teams each. Each group is headed by a professional grassroots squad, ensuring the experience of playing against a top level team in all the participating autonomous teams.

FC Barcelona, Atlético de Madrid, RCD Espanyol, Valencia CF, Real Madrid, Girona FC, Real Betis, Levante UD, Sevilla FC and RCD Mallorca are the national professional squads, while Juventus, SC Braga, FC Porto, OGC Nice, Sporting CP and AC Milan complete the list of international squads.

The competition will start on Saturday morning with the group phase which will last for the whole day. On Sunday morning, the final phases begin in all the towns. In the afternoon, the semi-finals and finals of all categories will be held at the Lloret de Mar Municipal Stadium. The day will conclude with the presentation of trophies.

Over the weekend, most of the participants and their companions will spend the night in Lloret de Mar and around 5,000 people are expected to pass through the town’s football pitches.

AFIA World Cup Spain 2024

AFIA, the world’s largest senior football organisation, has once again chosen Lloret de Mar as the only venue in Spain to host the AFIA Cup Espanha 2024, which will feature 23 teams from Brazil, 2 teams from the United States and 4 local teams, with a total of 900 people including players, coaching staff and accompanying persons from different Brazilian provinces such as Sao Paulo, Brasilia, Belo Horizonte, Porto Alegre, Manaus and Recife, as well as Miami, who will spend 7 days in Lloret de Mar. During the days of the competition, sporting activities are also organised for the participants and their companions, and the event culminates with the closing ceremony at the Lloret Theatre, with the Festa dos Campeões (Champions’ Festival).

On the other hand, since 20 May, Lloret de Mar has also been hosting the “Favafutsal Euskadi” Intercontinental Futsal Cup, with more than 100 participants from Colombia, Australia, Libya, Kazakhstan and France.

Almost 83,000 people travelled to Lloret in 2023 motivated by sports tourism, and football is the discipline that accounts for most sports stays and events in the destination, with a total of 14,301 footballers training or taking part in events at the town’s 3 municipal football pitches.

Lloret de Mar to increase sports tourism by 27.4% in 2023 compared to 2022

A total of 82,975 people related to sports tourism visited Lloret de Mar‘s sports facilities in 2023. This figure represents an increase of 27.4% compared to 2022, of which 45,922 were athletes (34%+) and 37,053 accompanying persons (23%+).

These figures were presented at the annual sports tourism round table organised by Lloret Turisme, which is made up of twenty accommodation establishments and two incoming agencies, all of which have been awarded the Catalan Tourist Board’s Sports Tourism Destination Certificate (DTE). This year, the Acapulco 4* Hotel, the Helios 4*S Hotel and El Trull Accommodation have also joined the group.

A total of 424 sports activities took place in Lloret in 2023, 80% of which were training camps. The data shows that the sports tourism season is getting longer; traditionally it has been held in March (4,037 sportsmen and women), April (11,552 sportsmen and women) and May (3,585 sportsmen and women), but in 2023 there were also very good figures in June (9,613 sportsmen and women) and July (5,977 sportsmen and women).

In terms of the number of participants, the most important sports are football with 14,301, basketball with 6,923 and athletics with 6,923. And in terms of the number of activities per nationality, France (77), Sweden (70), Catalonia (50) and the United Kingdom (26) stand out. These nationalities vary according to the sporting discipline: in athletics, France is in first place (19), followed by Catalonia (19) and Belgium (6); in football, Sweden (38), Switzerland (17) and Norway (14); in swimming, France (24), Germany (10) and Catalonia (5); in triathlon, France (22), Belgium (3) and Sweden (2); and finally, in cycling, France is in first place, followed by Belgium and the Netherlands.

The manager of Lloret Turisme, Elizabeth Keegan, explained that “these good figures are the result of the joint efforts of the public and private sectors, which work proactively to attract sports tourism through a series of promotional activities throughout the year, while also offering personalised attention once visitors are at the destination and maintaining constant contact, which contributes to the high level of loyalty that Lloret de Mar enjoys”. In this sense, Lloret Turisme is currently participating in the third edition of the Sports&Events Workshop in Calvià, a professional meeting that brings together more than a hundred operators from all over Europe specialised in sports tourism, where the Lloret team will conduct a total of twenty-four interviews. The Lloret companies L’Azure Hotel and Evenia Hotels will also participate. Last October, Lloret de Mar hosted the second edition of this benchmark event in the sports tourism sector. Following this, Lloret Turisme will also participate in a benchmark on cycle tourism organised by the Catalan Tourist Board and Cycling Friendly in Mallorca, with the aim of learning about the best practices of a benchmark destination in this field such as this island.

Lloret de Mar has been certified as a Sports Tourism Destination by the Catalan Tourist Board since 2006 and is the destination in Catalonia with the most certified sports (football, athletics, team sports, cycling, swimming and triathlon).