PALEXPO
INTERNATIONAL EXHIBITION AND CONVENTION CENTRE IN GENEVA

“After the shock wave of crises, the opportunity to reinvent ourselves”

The health and macro-economic crises in recent years may well have reshaped the market, but they also forced us to take the time and think about how to handle the change. We know that event-management remains the best way to unite, mobilise, and pull together. We also know that it needs to evolve, or even mutate, to create experiences that are more personalised, immersive, sustainable, accessible, and collaborative, and completely in line with the challenges of our times.

In the ongoing search for innovation and daring that characterises Palexpo, we have managed to rebound since 2022, and especially, to experience an exceptionally rich year in 2023. We were able to consolidate the diversity of our portfolio by hosting regular trade fairs such as Watches and Wonders Geneva and INDEX™, but also new events like Airspace World and our own brand-new exhibition, the Future of Work and Learning event, the first-ever trade show on the digital transformation of work and learning in French-speaking Switzerland. We wish it a splendid future! With a view to offer ever more innovative and unusual experiences, but also to create new opportunities within the company, I have the pleasure of announcing several new exhibition management teams, specifically in the scope of Les Automnales, for the events Love’n’more, Bébé, Junior et Nous,, and artgenève and artmonte-carlo.

This creative force that is rooted in the DNA of Palexpo has also enabled us to prepare for major trends that are now reshaping the sector. In an era where the word ‘interactive’ is gaining more and more meaning, we have amplified our presence on corporate digital channels to promote the Palexpo brand more effectively. We are increasingly present also on social media, which offer unique possibilities to highlight our events and interact with visitors in a more effective, engaging way. In this regard, I should like to single out the work done by the communication teams who were able to provide both qualitative and attractive video content to capture the attention, expand our audience, and promote our exhibitions in a media landscape that is often saturated.

In an extremely competitive environment, it also seemed essential to us to get closer to our audiences by offering them highly personalised, even bespoke events. The three sections of communication, digital marketing, and own-events management therefore decided to pool their expertise to collect, analyse and interpret the data of event participants in order to create experiences that will perfectly match their expectations and thereby contribute to Palexpo’s success in the long term. The first results are very positive and we firmly believe that this strategy of marketing-data management and analysis will play a key role in the future of our trade shows.

I wish to thank all our teams for their spirit of initiative, their mobilisation, and their great work. By turning each obstacle into an opportunity, everyone is helping to strengthen Palexpo’s competitiveness, positioning it as a key player, and contributing to the metamorphosis of our industry.