ABSTRACT
Barcelona’s Olympic Games closed on a hot August night in 1992 with a party in the Olympic stadium in which local residents, tourists, and sportsmen and women sang under the thundering display of breathtaking fireworks, united by the slogan: ‘Amigos para siempre’ (Friends forever). That night Barcelona’s politicians and citizens went to bed proud of a city that had shown the world that it had shed the legacy of Franco’s repression and had organized one of the most spectacular Games ever. Although there were many heroic performances, it was unanimously agreed that a major winner of the Olympics was the city of Barcelona itself, the Games not only beamed its metamorphosed urban landscape (which often featured as a background to the sporting events) into the world’s gaze, but also re-asserted its Catalan pride and identity. The 1992 Olympic Games catapulted Barcelona onto a global stage and into the heart of the world’s urban tourism networks. In less than 5 years the city had been transformed from a run-down industrial metropolis into one of Europe’s most desirable tourist venues.
