Sustainability and corporate social responsibility (CSR) were the focus of the second edition of the Costa Brava Challenge Week, the Costa Brava and Girona Pyrenees MICE event organised by the Costa Brava Girona Convention Bureau to familiarise the principal European agencies and event planners with the MICE options available in the province.

Throughout the three-day event, forty specialist event planner agents from nine European countries and 38 entities and companies from the province of Girona’s MICE sector took part in a programme aimed at showcasing proposals, venues and services for organising corporate events and congresses, incentive and teambuilding activities, in addition to the array of cultural, natural and gourmet attractions to be found in the Costa Brava and Girona Pyrenees.

The challenge in four actions

Corporate and institutional customers seek increasingly to have a positive impact on society or the environment. This is reflected in the growing demand for proposals for programmes and events that incorporate sustainability and social responsibility.

With this need in mind, we structured the itineraries of the Costa Brava Challenge Week around four actions affecting the region, two concerning social issues and two involving the environment.

This initiative highlighted the Costa Brava and Girona Pyrenees’ capacity as a destination for offering projects that provide for effective, relevant participation in enjoyable, genuine activities that develop team building.

Participants were faced with the challenge of publicising the projects in which they took part on social media:

Support in the work carried out by the team of carers in charge of the primates, chimpanzees and macaques housed at the Fundació Mona’s primate recovery centre in Riudellots de la Selva.

A day spent in the area of the mouth of the River Ter and Pletera beach, working to preserve the area’s vegetation in collaboration with Associació Sèlvans.

Conservation and recovery work on the entrance to the Rei Gardens in the Aiguamolls de l’Empordà Natural Park.

Professional meetings

On the first day a workshopwas held at the Hotel Peralada Spa & Golf, which generated 600 interviews between agencies and representatives of companies from Girona’s business tourism sector.

In addition to the forty-odd entities and companies from the province’s MICE sector, all members of the Costa Brava Girona Convention Bureau, this edition also featured support from the Catalan Tourist Board, Vueling and the cooperation of Renfe/SNCF.