Barcelona City Council and Costa Cruises have signed a Memorandum of Understanding that promotes a sustainable economy of the city and puts key values such as sustainability and inclusive tourism at the forefront. Costa has made the first steps, acting immediately by establishing a new multilingual center -the Costa Customer Hub-placed in the symbolic Torre Mapfre, planning to improve the customer services, while it contributes to the local community with new employments and trainings.
A month ago, 40 million euros are allocated for promotion of the blue sector, a strategy and part of the measures of the municipal government, a city project including 70 companies and institutions of the blue ecosystem of the city. The aim of the contract is to put sustainability and innovation in the first plan in Barcelona, and the economy linked to the sea become an indicator of the development of the city.
The First Deputy Mayor for Economy, Labor, Competitiveness and Finance, of the Barcelona City Council, and president of Barcelona Activa, Jaume Collboni, has declared: “the landing of a large company in the city, which decides to have its base in Barcelona as a pool of innovation, talent and technology to increase its competitiveness and generate work and wealth ”. In addition, he highlighted the municipal commitment to the project, "an investment that we frame in the BCN Green Deal economic strategy, specifically in promoting a model of sustainable and quality tourism and the Blue Economy".
"We are very pleased to sign the Memorandum of Understanding with the Barcelona City Council, as it perfectly embodies our vision expressed in the Costa Manifesto for values-based, inclusive and sustainable tourism. Our new Center of Excellence in Barcelona represents a first milestone significant of this agreement and a very innovative asset for our company, where we are building a team of qualified and multicultural professionals " , stated Mario Zanetti, president of Costa Cruises. “Barcelona plays a key role for our company. Here we deploy our new ships, including the flagship Liquefied Natural Gas Costa Smeralda, the most innovative and sustainable ship in the world, which will be followed by our second Liquefied Natural Gas ship Costa Toscana, which It will be delivered in the next few weeks. "
Barcelona has been chosen for launching this transformation project for improving customer services, because of the rich professionals and multicultural environment that meets Costa’s needs of swift growth in skills and business values.
The Costa Customer Hub so far has employed more than 100 high-value professionals representing 21 nationalities, with the main focus of growing even more in the near future by hiring new experts, becoming a cutting-edge innovation and development center for these people. .
Costa is a leader in sustainable cruises. The company has pioneered the use of Liquefied Natural Gas, the most innovative technology currently available in the maritime sector to reduce emissions. This new agreement will allow the company towards its ambitious goal of introducing a new generation of net zero-emission ships.
