the Social Integration of the Disabled was
renewed, and Fira continued to cooper-
ate with centres devoted to promoting the
integration into employment of people at
risk of social exclusion.
At the end of the year, the Fira work-
force comprised 319 people.
Institutional relations
The Department of Institutional Relations,
Protocol and the Chairman’s Office was
also kept very busy during the year under
review, particularly as related to visits by
authorities and personalities – more than
170 in number – to shows held at Fira de
Barcelona. Outstanding visitors included
the King, as well as senior representatives
of the State, such as the Spanish presi-
dent, ministers and secretaries of State,
the president and ministers of the Catalan
Government and the mayors of Barcelona,
L’Hospitalet and other cities.
Moreover, this Area collaborated
actively in events held parallel to most
shows, performing organisational, cer-
emonial and support work.
The Area also gave support to the
representative functions of the Chairman
of the Governing Board and the General
Manager, the celebration of organising
committee meetings of shows and other
assemblies, such as those of the General
Council, the highest governing body of
Fira, which meets twice a year.
The importance
of communication
The action of the Communication and
Studies Area was focused on design-
ing the global corporate communication
strategy and communication related to
the shows and events as a whole. The
Area also provided support for strategy
related to marketing the shows, corporate
identity and brand in addition to other
market research tasks.
An important part of the work of this
Area was the design, management and
improvement of online tools, especially the
corporate website, which had 517,600 us-
ers and received more than 690,000 visits;
the corporate Twitter account, with 11,600
followers; the institutional blog, with 8,110
page views; and the
Firanews
magazine,
with 115,800. It is also worth noting that
the websites of shows organised by Fira
de Barcelona had 2,300,000 users, and
that the institution’s social networks had
279,500 followers.
Over the year, 8,400 journalists and
were accredited and more than 22,000
media impacts were generated, that is to
say news, reports and comments about
shows, Congresses and corporate activ-
ity. These figures increase significantly if
we include shows and events that are
managed by other organisers but which
Management of online tools
is an essential part of the
corporate communication
strategy and the communi-
cation of shows and events.
Trade show services and management
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