Davos is dead – Politico

In 2020, the WEF’s Davos conference attracted More than 100 billionaires and 53 heads of state Or government. Companies – Still mostly from the US and Europe – Pay around $ 50,000 per person for the “white badge” you wish to access this guest list.

Of WEF Event fee revenue will drop from $ 45 million in 2020 to zero in 2021. Membership and partnership fees range from $ 65,000 to $ 650,000, “Depending on the size of the engagement,” to the WEF.

Membership revenues fell by $ 7.5 million in 2021, and companies like European telecommunications company BT severed ties. “We made the decision to end our partnership with the WEF earlier this year,” BT spokesman Richard Farnsworth told POLITICO.

Local businesses in Davos – Europe’s tallest city – depend heavily on the influx of wealthy visitors every January. While each company will only allow five white badge holders, the entourage of downstairs executives, assistants, drivers and cooks can participate in more than 100 large companies.

Shops and bars are being converted into extensive pavilions and exhibition spaces, while the fare to bed in an apartment is $ 1,000 a night. Do not ask about salad prices.

Organizers hope to shift the 2022 Davos conference to summer 2022, but a similar plan to shift the event to Kovid Defense Island collapsed in 2021.

Glass Swap, Executive Chairman of the WEF Announced in December 2020 with fanfare The Winter Davos Conference will move to Singapore in May 2021 as a way to escape the epidemic. That’s when the plan Delayed until August 2021 The Govt-19 cases were eventually completely overturned after a local increase.

WEF spokeswoman Amanda Rousseau underestimated the impact of the 2022 conference postponement. “With the day-to-day operations of our nearly 20 platforms, the annual meeting is just one touch point. Our partners sign up to serve as members throughout the year, ”Rousseau told Politico.

Following the appearance of the Omicron variant in November, the WEF successfully suspended – up to a week after the scheduled January event – the new Swiss rule requiring 10 days of isolation for foreign visitors to the Davos conference.

Hundreds of executives parachute into the Swiss Mountain Resort each year for the conference, many of which come in private jets, some of which are only available 24 hours a day: unscheduled schedules.

Does the sound wake up when you hear Crystal only sounds 100 people?

Even with the suspension of isolated rules, Davos event planners have been perplexed by changing local regulations in recent weeks, including strict limits on the number of participants in private events and concerns that the event will eventually be canceled.

Davos figures, including the Wall Street Journal and CNBC, halted plans for their usual pavilions and lounge spaces. Meanwhile, companies like JPMorgan wondered if they could go to evening receptions at local art galleries in the cave if those spaces were to be virtually empty according to Govt rules.

WEF sought to reassure email and its partners Exclusive Toplink social site The event will continue in early December. Nonetheless, regular Davos participants were skeptical that the event would continue as planned.

“As a crisis manager, our recommendation to clients anyway was Doomsday visual planning,” said a consultant at the Washington Campaign and Public Affairs Institute. “You have to do it in 2022, or ‘2020: Part Three’ I call it.”

WEF is excited now.

“The adjournment of the annual meeting will not impede progress by continuing to bring together business, government and civil society leaders digitally,” Swap said.

As some aspects of the WEF’s mission continue to expand, such as the Partner Capital Measurements Scheme, which includes more than 100 companies – the next challenge for the WEF is to be more practical: dealing with badge holders’ refunds on their tickets.

According to a WEF document obtained by POLITICO, the Davos badges will be “100 percent refunded until the meeting begins”. But CEOs’ cost statements can get stuck eating hotel rooms and Crystal’s unopened cases.