The World Economic Forum has increased the price of admission 10-fold for some guests at its annual meeting in Davos as it tries to grab a greater share of the corporate activity on the sidelines of the elite gathering.
The organisation is also expanding the number of passes available and revamping the access they provide. The shake-up, planned for the 2025 meeting in January, was discussed with sponsors at a meeting in Geneva this week, according to people who were there.
The WEF offers access passes, or badges, for second-tier attendees in the entourage of the corporate leaders who make up Davos’s official participants. These will rise in price from 100 Swiss francs (€106) in previous years to SFr1,000 from 2025.
The badges provide access to some parts of the WEF meeting but not the main conference centre where world leaders and chief executives can hobnob in between panels on the global economy, inequality and climate change. An elite badge costs SFr27,000 per person.
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The lower-tier badges will be made available to a wider range of participants than in previous years, including much smaller sponsors, and are designed to lure mid-tier executives with the promise of new opportunities to network with other attendees.
“It feels like a cash grab,” said an executive at one large WEF sponsor, “as if a marketing person has gone in and told them they are underselling Brand Davos. Frankly, I have no idea where they are going to put all these people. You already cannot move.”
The WEF meeting overwhelms the little Swiss ski resort every year for one week in January, when local businesses rent out space to corporations who want to set up “store fronts” where they can market their services and host client meetings.
For 2025, the WEF is erecting a new building near the conference centre in the middle of town to house its own administrators and to get in on the property frenzy. It has told sponsors they can rent meeting space in the container-style modular building for about SFr150,000 for the week.
The non-profit WEF counts many of the world’s largest companies among its top tier of 120 “strategic partners”, from tech giants to banks to professional services firms. But it also has a growing number of smaller corporate sponsors, taking the total number of partner companies to 900.
The WEF is also launching a programme allowing this wider circle of corporate sponsors to put on events of their own under the official Davos umbrella – for a fee. Under the plan, companies would be able to live-stream and market up to 10 panel sessions on the app for Davos participants if they pay SFr45,000, although the fee structure is likely to change after feedback in Geneva this week, according to people familiar with the discussion.
The WEF will have to vet that the sessions align with its mission of promoting human ingenuity, entrepreneurship and innovation. They will remain distinct from the official programme involving world leaders and CEOs.
The idea is to put a WEF stamp of approval on some of the activities that have sprang up on the outskirts of the event in recent years and sideline the opportunistic corporate marketing gimmicks that have also crowded into Davos.
“The goal is to give more opportunities to recognise partners’ thought leadership outside of the official programme,” a WEF spokesperson said.
The expanded badge system “will offer access to exclusive locations within the security zone and full-event digital services to navigate the Davos ecosystem, interact with each other and be listed on the World Economic Forum app alongside official participants”.
The spokesperson added: “The accredited programme, accredited badges and offices are provided to partners at cost.”
The WEF says that the 2025 annual meeting, which takes place from January 20th to 24th, will address challenges “responding to geopolitical shocks, stimulating growth to improve living standards and stewarding a just and inclusive energy transition”.
Preparations are unfolding against a backdrop of scrutiny of the WEF’s own culture, after allegations of workplace discrimination and sexual harassment against founder Klaus Schwab, which it denies. Its board of trustees has engaged an outside law firm to conduct a review of its workplace culture, which is yet to conclude. – Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2024
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