The Valencia Conference Centre strengthens its international leadership in business tourism in 2025

The Valencia Conference Centre closed the last financial year consolidating its upward trend as a destination for large meetings. In 2025, it generated 95,000 overnight stays, a figure that reflects the direct economic impact of conference activity in the city, especially considering that business tourism generates between three and four times more expenditure than holiday tourism.

After the historic record achieved in 2024, the organisation has consolidated this trajectory in 2025, recording its second-best year ever. This sustained growth is underpinned by the strengthening of its international positioning, with nearly half of its activity coming from foreign markets, and consolidates the Palau as a global benchmark in the MICE industry, which includes the organisation of meetings, incentive trips, conventions and trade fairs.

Paula Llobet, chair of the Board of Directors of the Valencia Conference Centre and Councillor for Tourism, Innovation and Investment at Valencia City Council, emphasised that “the 2025 financial year confirms the Valencia Conference Centre as a strategic infrastructure and a key player in the city’s international positioning” and is committed to “a solid, long-term management model capable of attracting high added-value events”. “We have a conference centre that is growing, innovating and giving value back to the city. Sustained investment, technological modernisation and collaboration with the local ecosystem, together with universities and start-ups, translate into higher quality events, a smaller environmental footprint and a greater legacy for the city,” added Llobet.

Growing activity

Attendance has increased, reaching a total of 115,000 participants in the 105 events held during 2025. Conferences continue to be the Palau’s main activity, accounting for more than 70% of its turnover for the financial year. Some of them have left a lasting legacy in the city, such as the Spanish Paediatrics Association, which presented a pioneering study analysing the physical, emotional and environmental impact of the storm on children.

Paula Llobet explained that “more than 55% of the conferences held were the result of active marketing by the Conference Centre, which highlights the importance of proactive recruitment and the ability to attract large conferences, with a high degree of advance planning and stability in the calendar.”

Furthermore, 2025 has seen a significant increase in conventions, tripling the number held in the previous year and attracting multinationals such as JYSK and key players in the global tourism sector, such as Arival. This trend is partly related to the strong support shown by the business community for Valencia following the effects of the storm, which has resulted in a greater number of conventions being held in the city.

The positive results are backed up by customer experience, as the satisfaction survey launched during the year highlights the team and the quality of the facilities as key strengths, with 75% of respondents giving an ‘excellent’ rating in both areas.

Investment of €1.4 million

It has also been a year for strengthening the entity’s role as a strategic infrastructure serving Valencia. This is demonstrated by the Zentropy MICE urban innovation project, which will study how to redirect the impact of conference tourism to benefit the city. At the same time, the municipal Urban Sandbox plan has turned the venue into a laboratory for innovative entrepreneurial projects.

Alongside these programmes, the Conference Centre is implementing an ongoing strategy to modernise the building based on technological innovation, with a dual purpose: to improve the customer experience and to strengthen the sustainability of the venue. In this regard, in 2025 it made an investment of more than €1.4 million, of which €600,000 came from its own funds and around €800,000 from the European Next Generation EU funds.

Among the main technical milestones achieved is the first phase of the Digital Twin, a virtual replica of the building that will enable progress towards automated and optimised resource planning. Added to this are advances such as the renovation of LED lighting, with estimated energy savings of 60%, and the completion of the photovoltaic roof for self-consumption, which will cover around 10% of energy demand.

In terms of sustainability, the municipal entity continues to implement programmes that seek to reduce the impact of events on the environment, such as the MagNuS project to reduce food waste, which in 2025 generated 6,423 meals donated to the Food Bank.