The Diplomat
The Mobile World Congress (MWC) will be held in Barcelona until 2030 after the GSMA renewed its current contract, extending its stay in the city for at least eight more years, the company said in a statement.
The decision was taken yesterday at a meeting in Kuala Lumpur of the GSMA’s top management, whose director general, Mats Granryd, stressed that “the strength of the partnership with local institutions has been a key element in bringing the Congress back”.
“We have not only grown the event since our arrival in Barcelona, but evolved it to include an entire ecosystem. The hospitality and people of the city and the real relationships we experience at all levels make Barcelona a piece of what the GSMA wants to create through MWC,” added company director John Hoffman.
The GSMA, Barcelona City Council, the Generalitat, the Ministry of Economy and Digital Transformation, Fira de Barcelona and Turisme de Barcelona will provide more details on the agreement on 20 July at a press conference at Fira de Barcelona’s Montjuïc venue.
In an interview on RAC 1, the president of Fira de Barcelona, Pau Relat, said yesterday he was confident that the MWC will remain in the Catalan capital “for many more years” and emphasised that the current agreement stipulates that the Congress will be held in Barcelona until at least 2030.
The 2022 edition, held at Fira de Barcelona’s Gran Via venue in L’Hospitalet de Llobregat (Barcelona), attracted more than 60,000 visitors, and in 2019 – before the pandemic – it reached its record with 109,000 attendees.
