The queues of tourists returned to Passeig de Gràcia, as if Covid had never existed. On a sunny September morning they crowd with their cameras in front of Gaudí's buildings or wait their turn in front of the most sought-after luxury brand stores. It is a weekday and, among the foreign visitors, there are professionals with briefcases on their way to a meeting or young people passing through on their way to the central UB. They are the people of Barcelona, who have never abandoned their most beautiful street, where they have some of the best bookstores, hotels converted into meeting points and the flagship stores of mass-market fashion brands, from Zara to Uniqlo or H
The citizens' love affair with the avenue manifested itself after the confinement, with the borders closed and visitors arriving in dribs and drabs. And it has been renewed with the celebration of the 200th anniversary of its Paseo de Gràcia. According to the real estate consultancy Ascana, the avenue is now in good health, after overcoming the covid crisis. Asia still hurts, whose luxury-addicted tourists are just beginning to return to flights to Europe. But during the hardest months of confinement, merchants and institutions became involved in the search for a recovery plan. Between March 2020 and the start of the Grec last July, with a crowd stationed along the entire route to admire how the tightrope walker Nathan Paulin swung on the roofs of the promenade, more than three years and many hours of work have passed. , calculations and city strategy.
This qualitative leap between the two scenarios was one of the objectives that drove the project for the 200th anniversary of Passeig de Gràcia and its classification as an event of exceptional public interest, which over the last year has turned the grand boulevard into the most lively heart from Barcelona. “In the celebration events we have seen that the people of Barcelona feel very much their own about Passeig de Gràcia, that they have not at all handed over their noblest street to tourism,” argues Xavier Carbonell, in charge of the organization of the 200th anniversary events. through the Fundació Barcelona Promoció, which has had the complicity of the different administrations, especially the city council.
The highlight of the celebration events, Carbonell highlights, was the mapping of Casa Batlló last May, which brought together more than 65,000 people in front of Gaudí's façade illuminated by Refik Anadol.
“More than celebrating events and events designed for the occasion, what we have proposed has been to move any cultural or festive event that takes place in the city to Passeig de Gràcia, from La Mercè to Grec.” There remains an intense Christmas campaign and all of 2024, with the lesson learned, which will culminate three years of acts and complicities thanks to public-private collaboration that, once again, bears fruit in the Catalan capital.
Having passed the meridian of three years of celebration, with our sights already set on the Christmas campaign and the 2024 program, for Carbonell, "the great challenge is to involve the brands of international groups that make decisions in Paris or Milan and sometimes it is difficult for them to connect with the local culture.
