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THE GOOD LIFE: A thriving bar culture is part of Barcelona's appeal
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From the expansive eDreams headquarters in Barcelona's harborside World Trade Center complex, Javier Pérez-Tenessa is enchanted by all he surveys. To the east are the blue waters of the Mediterranean, a favorite cruise destination for passengers who use eDreams, an Internet-based travel service, to help organize their vacations. To the northwest is the gleaming old town, into which Pérez-Tenessa and his colleagues regularly disappear after work for dinner and drinks. "I wanted to go to a cool city," Pérez-Tenessa says, "and this is paradise."
When it launched in 1999, eDreams could have established itself anywhere in Europe. But 33-year-old ceo Pérez-Tenessa — who was raised in Mexico and Spain and attended graduate school in the U.S. — chose the Catalan capital. Lured by a fun-in-the-sun lifestyle and a local government determined to transform Barcelona into the high-tech mecca of southern Europe, the bright young things of the new economy are flocking to the city, setting up in areas like the World Trade Center and bringing a new dimension and impetus to the city's economy.
Barcelona's colonization by the Internet set has been surprisingly swift. Membership of the city's chapter of First Tuesday, the dotcom networking organization, has blossomed from several hundred toward the end of last year to about 2,500 at last count. Government commitments to fuel Barcelona's boom with cold, hard cash have certainly helped — $250 million over the next five years to develop Internet infrastructure, a broadband network and several new technology parks. The Catalans are also offering start-ups managerial assistance and up to $174,000 in loans to get them off the ground. "If we want to be a player in the future, we have to be present in the new economy," says Carles Sans i Rabellat, a director at the government's Center for Innovation and Business Development.
The gorgeous climate and government largesse give Barcelona dotcoms a great recruiting advantage in the fiercely competitive search for talented IT professionals. eDreams has used the city's charms to draw folks from across the globe with tales of a work hard-play hard lifestyle that may have them slaving at their terminals for 60-plus hours a week but windsurfing on the Mediterranean on weekends. The company now claims some 17 different nationalities among its 50-odd Barcelona-based staff. The influx of foreign talent is making its presence felt beyond company offices, too. At night, the city's crowded bars and fashionable restaurants buzz with a lively mix of languages.
At first glance, it may seem more plausible that Madrid, Spain's capital and financial center, would be the city of choice for dotcom entrepreneurs looking to settle in Spain. Between them, Barcelona and Madrid boast almost half the country's Internet users. But Barcelona, which is locked into a longstanding rivalry with its sister city, has a history as a cultivating ground for small- and medium-sized enterprises, perhaps due in part to the Catalans' robust work ethic and fearsome negotiating abilities.
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