CATALONIA LAUNCHES VR ‘LEGENDS OF CATALONIA: THE LAND OF BARCELONA’ GAME TO PROMOTE REGION AS VISITOR DESTINATION

On 2 November 2018, the Catalan Tourist Board launched an interactive game to encourage travellers to visit the region of Catalonia. Developed in partnership with Sony, the game combines Virtual Reality (VR) and Augmented Reality (AR) to encourage potential visitors to board a flight and see the northeast corner of Spain.

The launch of the game has made the Catalan Tourist Board the first tourism promotion board worldwide to employ this kind of technology to promote a visitor destination. ‘Legends of Catalonia: The Land of Barcelona’ gives players the opportunity to select internationally recognised Catalan personalities such as Carles Puyol, FC Barcelona and Spain national team captain; Edurne Pasaban, first female mountaineer to climb the 14 eight-thousander peaks in the world; and the Roca brothers, famous restaurateurs and owners of one of the world’s best restaurants. Having selected a character, players will then have a series of objectives that take place in the most iconic Catalan sites such as Tarragona’s Roman amphitheatre, Lleida’s old cathedral, the mountain range of Montserrat, Dali’s Cadaques, Barcelona’s Sant Antoni market and the Sagrada Familia church.

The Catalan Minister of Business and Knowledge, Angeles Chacon stated: “Legends of Catalonia is an internationally ground-breaking campaign and the most innovative ever produced in Catalonia. This is the first time, worldwide, that a tourism promotion board has used a virtual reality video game to promote a destination.”

The game is available in three languages: English, Spanish and Catalan, and can be downloaded for free from the PlayStation store.