As a preview of the Annual Report that it publishes each year, the Board of Trustees of Torreciudad has prepared information on visitors and activities in 2023. Overall, Torreciudad received around 200,000 people last year, 5% more than in 2022. The months with the greatest influx were August (32,500), April (25,000), and July (24,500), coinciding with the summer and Easter holiday periods.
Group typology
During 2023, the usual profile of pilgrims organized around religious communities of various characteristics has been consolidated: parishes, groups of faithful, brotherhoods, ecclesial movements, congregations… However, the largest typology has corresponded to the category of “family and friends.” »: small groups that prepare their trip flexibly and autonomously and that, increasingly, increase the number of days they stay in the territory as they learn about the wide range of tourist options available to them.
The natural, cultural, and leisure resources that surround the sanctuary constitute an attraction of great interest for this family audience. The Torreciudad Tourism Office permanently distributes, through brochures and digital mailings, information on hotels and restaurants, wineries, natural parks, museums, active tourism activities, cultural itineraries, gastronomic and wine routes and other resources in the territory.
Tourism promotion and high participation
As a result of the promotional work of the Delegates of the Torreciudad Board of Trustees and the close collaboration in tourism fairs with the Government of Aragon, in 2023 the best historical records of public and pilgrim attendance have been obtained in various activities and conferences. Thus, for example, during Holy Week more than 15,000 people visited the sanctuary, the four concerts of the XXVIII International Organ Cycle brought together some 1,400 attendees, the 17th Pilgrimage with the Virgin of Quinche brought together more than 4,000 pilgrims on November 25 Ecuadorians, and the Nativity scene included in the Bethlehem Route of Aragon was visited this Christmas by about 15,500 people.
Geographic origin
Regarding the geographical distribution of visitors personally attended to at the Tourist Office, international origin has reached 15.07% of the total, with visitors from 54 countries, among which France stands out (21.97% of the total), Mexico (8.74%), the United States (7.01%) and Poland (6.85%). The increase in Mexican pilgrims compared to the year 2022 is very relevant, in which this nation contributed 3.90% of the total visitors from other countries, as a result of the constant promotional work of the Mariana Route Association with various international tour operators.
Regarding Spanish origin, the autonomous Community of Madrid has constituted the main origin (27.86% of nationals), followed by Catalonia (24.99%), Aragon (12.72%), the Valencian Community (9 .30%) and Navarra (8.98%).
Museographic spaces
The museography of Torreciudad has become one of the great references for religious tourism travel agencies and for organizers of international pilgrimages. The two main experiences offered to visitors are the Space “Live the experience of faith”, which during 2023 welcomed 13,755 people, and the video-mapping “The altarpiece tells you”, finalist last December for the Awards for the Best Tourist Experience in Aragon. Available in three versions (Christmas, Easter and the usual one for the rest of the year) and in three languages (Spanish, English and French), more than 22,000 people have attended the screenings.
On the other hand, the gallery of Marian devotions incorporated twelve new images of the Virgin Mary last year, on pilgrimages from Croatia, Poland, Argentina, Venezuela and Spain. Currently, a total of 541 Patronesses from 79 countries on five continents can be seen in the gallery.
Digital broadcast
Torreciudad’s social networks have increased the number of followers by 9.33% compared to 2022, going from 79,282 to 86,676. Once again, Facebook has been the network that has grown the most in percentage terms (16.55%, from 14,368 to 16,746), followed by Instagram (9.57%, from 17,139 to 18,780) and YouTube (7.57%, from 38,328 to 41,231 subscribers).
Other channels through which information about Torreciudad is disseminated digitally are the monthly email news bulletin (12,727 addresses) and the sending of a weekly information message by WhatsApp to 2,630 recipients. As for visitor opinions, reviews published on Google have increased by 3.55%, and users give the sanctuary an average rating of 4.7 out of 5 out of a total of 3,555 published reviews.
Streaming broadcasts
The Torreciudad YouTube channel broadcasts the celebration of the mass and the prayer of the rosary and angelus live daily. In 2023, there has been more than 400,000 views from 35 countries, while the videos that allow you to follow the prayer of the rosary have accumulated 866,542 views. The petitions to the Virgin of Torreciudad, received on the sanctuary’s website, have been 4,609, 8.50% more than in 2022. After the angelus prayer, these petitions are read every day before her image.
Guidance for 2024
The next Annual Meeting of Delegates of the Board of Trustees of Torreciudad, which will celebrate its 48th edition on March 2 and 3, 2024, will mark the beginning of a new cycle of work aimed at reinforcing traditional days and pilgrimages, promoting participation in the Marian Day of the Family, somewhat reduced in 2023, and to organize reflection groups to prepare suggestions for the celebration in 2025 of the 50th anniversary of the opening to worship of the new Torreciudad, inaugurated on July 7, 1975. In parallel, the Family pastoral care will continue its determined drive for spiritual help to families, especially with the hosting of the “TWOgether Torreciudad” marriage courses and the celebration of various family events.
