Seafood Expo quits Brussels for Barcelona after 28 years

One of the biggest trade fairs to visit Brussels each year has announced it is quitting the Belgian capital in 2021, preferring Barcelona instead.

Thousands of hotel rooms across the capital are fully booked when the Seafood congress comes to Brussels Expo every spring.

The largest seafood fair in the world attracts 29,000 buyers and has been hosted in Brussels for 28 years.

According to organisers, Brussels Expo is no longer big enough to accommodate all the visitors and the 2,000 companies that exhibit.

"Barcelona has a much bigger and more modern congress centre than Brussels," said Rodolphe Van Weyenbergh, general secretary of the Brussels Hotel Association, "The hotel capacity there is almost twice as big as ours."

Despite the loss, business travel remains a growth area for the Brussels tourism industry. The number of nights spent in hotels by congress attendees doubled between 2017 and 2018, according to visit.brussels

And while the seafood industry will no longer be coming to Brussels, another major trade congress has been signed. Brussels has been confirmed as the host city for Busworld, the world's largest bus trade fair, which will bring about 35,000 visitors to the capital.

Photo: Mission of Norway to the EU/Flickr