The America's Cup is a sporting event and an opportunity. It offers the platform for Barcelona to regain its international prominence. You don't live off the myth alone. From time to time it is necessary to remove the dust.
"Barcelona became known in 1992 with the Olympic Games and generated a global brand, understood as a culturally powerful, Mediterranean, open, cosmopolitan city, a city that underwent great transformations", pointed out Jordi Valls, lieutenant of mayor of the Catalan capital's City Council and responsible for the area of Economy, Finance, Economic Promotion and Tourism.
"In 1992 we discovered the beach, now we explain that we will discover the sea", he remarked.
"Discovering the sea means taking responsibility for the sea and the America's Cup is a lever to make us more responsible for what the oceans are and what the Mediterranean is", he insisted.
This is the message of the delegation led by Valls that yesterday brought to New York the appeal of this nautical test that will take place between August and October. In the auditorium there was a good representation of the main companies in the high-end tourism sector, as well as key players in the tourism of the east coast of the United States, a coast with a lot of sailing.
Patrick Torrent, executive director of the Catalan Agency of the Generalitat, and Mateu Hernández, general director of the Barcelona Tourism consortium, were also part of the expedition.
There have been other promotions in cities directly involved in the competition with their boats. But New York is a place of great importance. Not only because of the relevance in terms of quantity and quality of North American visitors, the most important at present, but also because of the long tradition in the cup, named after them, among the sailors and fans of this country. "It's an event that they feel is very much their own," Hernández clarified.
Valls specified that the responsibility towards the sea seeks for Unesco to facilitate in Barcelona one of the specialized centers of cooperation and "is the development of a more aggressive way, said in the good sense of the word, of a nautical culture". emphasized Valls.
"We want to capture the nautical world because, in general, it has a well-being situation and is the type of visitor that interests us. This allows us to strengthen our nautical culture", he clarified. It would be to get the model of the coast of Croatia or the Greek islands.
Part of the presentation to this sector of specialists was dedicated to emphasizing the visual impact that the world will receive with images in which "ships will be seen flying in front of the coast", in Hernández's metaphor. From the W hotel to the three chimneys of Besòs, with the profile behind the Sagrada Família.
The audience in Manhattan was told that the estimated television and internet impact will reach 1.5 billion people. This will motivate great tourist interest, although it does not have to be for the event itself. Rather, an effect similar to that of 1992 is expected, when it took some time for the seed of the Olympic Games to germinate.
This time the seed is formed by tourism that spends, with a marked cultural character, that consumes gastronomy, that is respectful, that is curious and that feels an interest in the city. "In this way we will renew the image of Barcelona in front of such an important audience", stated Hernández in his assessment regarding the objectives of the trip.
