Global fast food giant McDonald’s has sparked fears for hotel capacity in a popular Spanish holiday city as more than 15,000 employees are set to descend for a conference.
Catalan holiday favourite Barcelona has been chosen by the huge firm as the location for a bi-annual conference with executives jetting in from 155 countries for the event.
Barcelona is a popular city break spot for many British holidaymakers and there have been reported concerns such a large number of people arriving in one go could book out hotel and Airbnb space.
According to local reports in Spain the conference will run from Monday, April 8 to Thursday, April 11.
A tourism sector source told British expat newspaper The Olive Press: “Barcelona is not able to absorb all the tourist demand and has had to ask for help from neighbouring municipalities.”
Meanwhile large groups will have to be split in restaurants because the eateries “don’t have enough space to host convention delegates”.
Express.co.uk have contacted McDonald’s for comment.
Barcelona is no stranger to large tourist numbers, with the stunning Spanish city attracting over 12 million people visiting the location last year spending over €9.6 billion (£8.2 billion).
The city is also home to Barcelona football club which regularly hosts around 5,000 away fans in the famous Camp Nou stadium for match days.
The Catalan News reports the United States is the top nationality arriving in Barcelona, followed by British, French, Italian and German tourists.
In recent years Japanese and Russian tourists have dropped by 53 percent and 64 percent respectively.
Despite the huge number of delegates coming for the McDonald’s conference, the firm does not make the global top ten of largest employers.
A table from Forbes in 2023 ranked fellow US firms Walmart and Amazon as having the biggest workforces, with 2.1 million for the supermarket chain and 1.5 million for the delivery giant.
