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The Barcelona Mobile World Congress
Introduction
The Mobile World Congress (MWC) takes place annually in Barcelona, Spain. It is one of the most
important mobile technology events in the world, in which the latest technological developments

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and the next generation services and devices that will shape future mobile communications are
presented. The congress offers a unique opportunity for engineers, scientists and investors in the
area of mobile communications to follow the rapid changes in the industry.

The Mobile World Congress was originally funded by Delson Group Inc., and its first sessions
were held in Cannes. It moved to Barcelona in 2006, and an agreement with the local
government has granted the city the right to host it until 2018. The MWC 2013 was held
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from February 25 to 28 and involved more than 1,500 exhibitors, 3,000 executives and 3,500
journalists from all over the world.

Figure 1
Rooms booked for the Barcelona MWC
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25000
Hotel rooms booked

20000
No

10000
2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011

Source: www.expansion.com, 02/19/2013.

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This focus case was prepared by Professor Miguel Ángel Canela, Inés Alegre, Professor at the Universitat Internacional de
Catalunya, and Burçin Güçlü, PhD Candidate, as the basis for class discussion rather than to illustrate either effective or
ineffective handling of an administrative situation. May 2014.

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Last edited: 5/23/14

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infringement of copyright. Permissions@hbsp.harvard.edu or 617.783.7860
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ADFC-1-E The Barcelona Mobile World Congress

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Increasing from 49,000 visitors in 2009 to 67,000 visitors in 2012, the economic impact of
this four-day event for the city of Barcelona is substantial and growing every year. For
instance, as seen in Figure 2, the MWC 2011 brought more than €300 million to the city.
Among the facilities most favored by the MWC attendees are Barcelona hotels and

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restaurants, which are usually full to capacity during the event, despite the fact that
Barcelona has more than 400 hotels, some of which, such as the Hotel Arts, the Hotel W, the
Hotel Reina Sofía or the Hotel Juan Carlos I, are high-capacity establishments, each with
about 500 rooms.

Figure 2

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Economic impact

400

300
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Economic impact (million €)

200
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100

0
2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011
No

Source: www.expansion.com 02/19/2013.

Customer Retention
Eulàlia Sunyer, a manager at one of these large hotels, estimates that 70% of her customers
are business people who travel to Barcelona frequently. Good client service is always
important in the hotel industry, but it is even more important in this case, as the hotel
management would like the customers to repeat their stay for the annual MWC meeting in
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the city.

During the MWC 2012, Eulàlia launched a survey addressed to the hotel customers with
questions related to the quality of the hotel customer service. The available data set contains
the results of the 2012 customer service satisfaction survey for the MWC visitors. The survey

2 IESE Business School-University of Navarra

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infringement of copyright. Permissions@hbsp.harvard.edu or 617.783.7860
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The Barcelona Mobile World Congress ADFC-1-E

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includes five questions related to different aspects of the customers’ satisfaction with the
hotel. Each question is answered using a 0-5 scale (from 0-bad to 5-excellent).

In 2013, Eulàlia came back to this data. She split the sample into two groups: the guests who
did not come back in 2013 and those who did come back. The sizes of the two groups were

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161 and 252, respectively. Eulàlia plans to use this data set to explore the relationship
between customer loyalty and customer satisfaction. As a measure of customer satisfaction,
she uses the average of the responses to the five questions.

Suggested Analysis
1. According to the available data, which customers were more satisfied: those who came

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back in 2013 (loyal customers) or those who did not (non-loyal customers)?

2. Calculate confidence limits for the mean satisfaction of the non-loyal and the loyal
customers. What do you conclude?

3. Compare the distribution of the customers’ satisfaction with the normal distribution in
the two groups individually. Is the departure from the normal distribution relevant for
the previous analysis?
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No
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IESE Business School-University of Navarra 3

This document is authorized for educator review use only by T RADHA RAMANAN, Indian Institute of Management - Indore until Sep 2023. Copying or posting is an
infringement of copyright. Permissions@hbsp.harvard.edu or 617.783.7860