Twenty thousand light bulbs sparkle on the Eiffel Tower every hour from nightfall to 1am in Paris, the European city regularly referred to as la ville-lumiere, or city of lights. The dynamic destination boasts 13,000 cafes and restaurants, 1,800 historic monuments, 70,000 seats in 208 theatres, 436 parks and gardens and 17,500 shops. Over 2,300 bottles of champagne are uncorked every evening in Parisian cabarets.
Beyond the glamour, Paris is an incredibly dynamic city with eight economic and scientific centres in numerous sectors of activity including digital, green-technology, finance and digital publishing.
The European leader in terms of its gross domestic product, the Paris region has the second largest concentration in the world (after Tokyo, Japan) of company headquarters of the 500 biggest multinationals, while also ranking as Europe’s second most important financial centre.
Around 45 per cent of visitors to Paris come do so for business. The city hosts over 900 congresses a year bringing between 600,000 and 700,000 delegates. It also hosts an average 450 tradeshows drawing 10m visitors and 100,000 exhibiting companies. A 2011 study by Paris Convention and Visitors Bureau found attendance at Paris congresses that rotate internationally goes up by 20 per cent and of congresses that chose to stay in the city between 2007 and 2010, average attendance grew by 36 per cent.
“Paris is a welcoming and accessible city which makes a vital contribution to the success of events hosted here,” says Christian Sautter, Deputy Mayor of Paris in charge of employment, economic development and international attractiveness.
Events
In 2011 792,000 conference delegates descended on Paris to attend events held in 200 of the city’s congress centres, scientific venues and hotels with meeting rooms. The figures from Paris Convention and Visitors Bureau showed a 3.8 per cent rise in the number of conferences hosted compared to 2010 and an 18 per cent rise in delegate numbers. The medical sector accounted for the majority of these congresses with 48 per cent of all congresses held in Paris and the Paris region in 2011 being medical congresses.
The Congress of the European Society of Cardiology (ESC), chose Paris on rotation in 2011, and it was the biggest congress the city had ever hosted, attracting 33,000 delegates. The congress win followed a 2009 charter for hosting major professional events signed by the city, the bureau and 15 Parisian hotel groups, which pledged to offer specific advantageous conditions to organisers for large-scale events.
The city has also pledged to attract more scientific, economic and sporting events in the future, and a renovation of the Porte de Versailles Exhibition Centre will help the city to realise this. The Porte de Versailles Exhibition Centre is one of 10 venues in the city which is part of the Viparis conglomerate that includes; Paris Expo Porte de Versailles; Carrousel du Louvre; Paris Nord Villepinte; Le Palais des Congres de Paris; Cnit Paris La Defense; Le Palais des Congres d’Issy; Paris Le Bourget; Espace Champerret and Espace Grande Arche.
Viparis offers 630,000sqm of event space and more than 480,000sqm of outdoor event space, or 90 per cent of the French capital’s event space. The new space should be completed for use by Autumn 2013.
Viparis Deputy General Manager Marina Jestin says: “The venue is already seeing a boost in events in the fashion, textiles, kitchen, multimedia entertainment, sports and Japanese manga sectors.”
Viparis’ CEO Renaud Hamaide was recently announced as the next president of the global exhibition industry association UFI. According to Hermaide, exhibitors in particular, are continuing to invest in the French capital.
Research from Foires Salons Congres et Evenements de France, which oversees tradeshows, exhibitions, congresses, venues and congress centres in France, found advertiser spending for exhibitions increased by 2.9 per cent in 2011 to €1.5bn (US$1.96bn). Hermaide says he forecasts a similarly busy 2013.
“As a leading congress and exhibition venue operator, Viparis constantly works on the improvement of the quality of visitors’ and exhibitors’ passage through our sites. This starts from the preparation of their visit at home to the actual event, and this is a priority,” says Hamaide.
AV Supplier Smart AV has worked in Paris on numerous events, including the Paris Airshow, organised by Salon International de l’Aeronautique et de l’Espace, which takes place at Le Bourget Paris Exhibition Centre and attracts more than 2,100 exhibitors and 350,000 trade and public visitors. Liam Tuke, Sales Director for the company says it has mixed experiences of Paris as an events city.
“For us as a supplier, the biggest problem with any event is access and traffic and with locations such as Paris we would often have three plus large trucks of technology and equipment to get through the doors of an events venue. Access and parking can be a problem in Paris with traffic wardens being notoriously more strict than those in London.
“Paris does also experience bad traffic and highly congested areas around the main city centre, which is often worse than in other major cities throughout the world. What makes getting through the traffic worthwhile, however, is the variety of experiences available on Paris’ doorstep and the sheer number of cultural sight-seeing spots available within the city. Venues such as Le Bourget, originally an aeronautic centre, and since developed as a popular meeting space, are great host locations for large events due to the sheer amount of space available where various halls have been added to the main structure without giving a feeling of confinement.”
Venues
In 2008 the Mayor of Paris launched a Hotel Plan seeking to encourage the creation of 7,000 extra guest rooms on land owned by the municipality by 2020. The city currently has 81,139 bedrooms in 1,549 hotels and the inner suburbs account for 28,969 bedrooms. Around 44.5 per cent of overnight stays in Parisian hotels recorded in 2011 were business stays.
The Mayor’s plan is firmly underway and new and redeveloped properties are opening up all over the city. The five-star Grand Hotel du Palais Royal is due to open imminently following a refurbishment of its 69 rooms and suites. The 1928 Art Deco-style Hotel Prince de Galles is scheduled to reopen in the first quarter of 2013 following a complete refurbishment. The hotel has 168 rooms and six meeting spaces, the largest of which, the Salon Panache, can seat 200 delegates.
A major development for the city is the World Trade Center Roissy Paris CDG. The project includes the development of an integrated complex with a congress centre and hotels in the immediate vicinity of Roissy Charles de Gaulle airport.
It is expected to open in 2014 and will comprise 1,734 hotel rooms, more than 85,000sqm of conference space, a five-star hotel with 1,600sqm of meeting space and a spa, and a wide range of restaurants. A shuttle service will operate from the complex to the surrounding hotels, train and airport terminals, golf courses and shopping centres.
Chairman of the Paris Convention and Visitors Bureau, Thierry Le Roy says: “In 2011, Parisian tourism reached record levels, with 36.9m hotel overnights which was an increase of 3.1 per cent compared to levels in 2010.
“For the first time it exceeded 36m overnights.
“These good results show the strong appeal of the capital, in a rapidly changing tourism environment and in a context marked by the continuing global economic crisis,” he adds.
Organiser comment: Luke Brynley-Jones, Oraganiser of the Social Customer Conference in Paris
The Social Customer Conference is part of a unique series of conferences that Our Social Times hosts in London, Paris, Frankfurt and Brussels, exploring how social media is reshaping the relationship between customers and organisations.
How is Paris as an event host city?
It’s good, because it’s very large, has good transport links and is very centralised. You need to be careful about which neighbourhood you host your event in, as Parisians don’t like going to some areas. An example of this is the 10th Arondissement which is not regarded well.
What are Parisian venues like?
Generally the venues are of a high quality, but expensive if compared to the UK. Parisians do the same thing they do in the US, where they charge each cost separately, so your bill adds up and is quite complex.
Venue owners treat their customers much like French restaurant owners do: they are doing you a favour by allowing you to use their venue. Customer service can be very bad and relationships are quite legalistic.
French delegates?
We’ve found French attendees to be active and engaged participants at our events, but they can be vocal with their criticisms.They expect wine at lunch and won’t put up with sandwiches.
This was first publshed in Issue 70 of CMW. Any comments? Email cmw@mashmedia.net
