Châteauform' will get off to a good start in 2025 with the start of operations in January at 3 Mazarium, the Institut de France's events venue. What prospects does this award offer you?
Benjamin Abittan - We believe in it very much. It's a place with the kind of character we like at Châteauform', even more steeped in history than usual. In addition to our commercial expertise, the fact that we won this tender launched by the Institut de France for a five-year concession is undoubtedly due to our CSR commitment, particularly that of our caterer Nomad. The desire of the Institut de France and their academies is first and foremost to host their events at an advantageous price, but also, around these internal needs, to market the 3 Mazarium to companies. It will be a very attractive product for them, in the heart of Paris, with a sumptuous auditorium donated by the Bettencourt family, in which we are currently investing with our partner Stardust to raise the technological level even further.
Before we look to the future, let's look briefly at the past. Was 2024 a good year for Châteauform'?
B. A. - This will be our best year ever, with sales approaching 300 million euros. And that's despite the Olympic Games which, counter-intuitively, slowed down our business in the Paris region, with many companies teleworking and others avoiding holding their events in the Paris region. This also explains why our establishments in the region and outside France have performed very well on their side. On the other hand, our caterer Nomad benefited greatly from the Olympic Games. Its commitment to eco-responsibility enabled it to secure six boats for the opening ceremony and to provide catering and hospitality services at four key sites during the Paralympics. This recognition played a part in the 3 Mazarium tender, when we were the outsider in the events and catering sector, but it also opened the door to new addresses. Organisers can now call on Nomad Traiteur at the Château de Versailles and the Grand Palais. I'm very proud of what our teams have achieved.
Will 2025 be a similar year?
B. A. - I don't expect strong growth in 2025 compared with 2024. With the fall of the Barnier government, I can see a wait-and-see attitude setting in among businesses. Most of my network of entrepreneur friends tell me that they plan to hold their events in the second half of the year, waiting to see what happens. More generally, there are a form of uncertainty in Europe, particularly in France and Germany. So, as I think that companies are going to be cautious, I'm going to be cautious too. Apart from the things that have already been started, I'm not launching any revolution this year, with a budget that's more or less stable. We have quite a few projects in our pipeline, but we should only open four or five new locations this year, particularly in Germany.
Three new homes are due to open in Germany in the coming months. Can you tell us about them?
B. A. - This year we're opening a sixty-room house near Berlin. In a beautiful, very German castle, with its white facade and red roof, its moat and small drawbridge. Another house, with around a hundred rooms, is also due to open this year near Munich. Then, at the beginning of 2026, we'll have a new 160-bedroom house near Frankfurt. As Germany is less centralised than France, where everything takes place in the Paris region, these developments will strengthen our presence in the region. three new economic areas. We have deliberately focused on this country in order to have a more pan-European strategy. Ultimately, I want France to account for less than 50% of our sales. We saw the major setback that a dramatic event in Paris in 2015 caused to our business because we were very 'Paris centric'. From then on, we focused on other destinations to diversify. Like Germany, which is now our second-largest market, with six houses today and nine in the very near future.
Will this pan-European expansion continue, not only in Germany, but also in Italy and Spain, where you opened a new Campus near Barcelona last year?
B. A. - We need to expand where we already have a presence. A city like Frankfurt deserves more than just one Châteauform', given the number of companies in the vicinity, which is closer to our core business - executive training - than Berlin, which has a strong focus on start-ups and is more geared towards on-the-job training. As for Spain and Italy, we continue to look for great houses. But as I don't compromise on charm and quality, it's harder to find, even though we're working on a project in Italy, the best-performing market in 2024. Italian companies are doing very well locally, and our customers continue to love the destination of Southern Europe.
So there are customer transfers, not only between your houses in the Paris region, but also from country to country?
B. A. - Absolutely. This year, for example, our international customers were able to switch to Italy because they couldn't or didn't want to come to Paris, and Milan was a good alternative. More generally, our French customers organise quite a few events abroad. We also have a team in the UK that markets us in a number of countries, including the UK, Sweden and the USA. Our brand and our network give us access to European contracts with some of our customers, their various subsidiaries coming to us.
Let's look at the major trends. Teleworking and the associated need to meet up as a team have fuelled activity in recent years. Haven't we entered a phase of standardisation, or even of companies turning up the screws in this area?
B. A. - I'm less afraid of that. Especially as this need to be together is, I think, the source of accelerating Châteauform' Inside (Editor's note: our offer for managing workspaces and living spaces within companies). In twelve months, we've signed up ten new locations, ranging from towers at La Défense to office blocks in central Paris, as well as well-known brands such as Dior, Chanel and L'Oréal. With the changing nature of the office, people want half the space for twice the experience. So Châteauform' Inside is not an extension of our business, but another way of doing the same thing, with the same expertise, this time on the customer's premises rather than ours. On the other hand, this development has an impact on our Chateauform' City offer. Now that companies have redesigned their offices, adding beautiful rooms for smaller meetings, they have less need for solutions for meetings of 6 or 8 people. At the same time, this reduction in office space means that they are looking outside for large rooms that can accommodate 50 or 80 people. This has led us to adjust the City inventory in response to this change.
Does this also explain why several Châteauform' Cities in Paris have opened up to a new activity with Tables Privées Parisiennes?
B. A. - We develop our offer by thinking about the different needs of our customers. And this is based on our own observations: finding a restaurant in Paris for a group of 20 or 25 people is hell. And even if you can find a place for a team meal, you want to be in a private roomTo be able to stand up and say a word, which is impossible in a restaurant. It was with this in mind that we created the Tables Privées Parisiennes in four of our establishments. This dining experience has been designed to stand out from the Châteauform' seminar spirit, with names for each of the Tables Privées and refined menus. This offer, which guarantees a private room on reservation, even at weekends, is proving very popular, though curiously less so with our regular customers than with others looking for private venues for business dinners or team parties.
At the start of this interview you talked about the CSR commitment of your group, which will become a mission-driven company in 2023. How are these pledges of eco-responsibility viewed by your customers?
B. A. - They are happy to hear about it. This positioning can reinforce their choice. But, contrary to what I would have thought, it is not the trigger for the act of buying. Our value proposition comes first. It's as old as the hills: CSR is intellectually appealing, but it doesn't translate directly into buying behaviour. However, from a manager's point of view, becoming a company with a mission is a very strong factor in recruitment and in the commitment of our in-house talent. They are the ones who have pushed us to go further, with the idea not of reducing our impact, but of making it positive for the planet and for the region. Hence the launch of the Regen' Roqueux experiment, for seminars with a positive impact.
What exactly is Regen' Roqueux?
B. A. - They set about rewriting the project for this LEAD-labelled house, which focuses on organic vegetable production and permaculture. Short circuits, plant-based consumption - vegetarianism is an aspect on which this house does not compromise - work on reducing waste, involvement of local associations and craftsmen: the fact that we have gone so far speaks to some of our customers. A major French luxury group, for example, has chosen this company. for a CSR training programmefor the coherence between its message and the experience that the participants will have. After that, there's a bit of a generation clash. Other customers may say "your project's great, but I don't want to come here" or "I don't want to take the risk" and choose one of our other homes accordingly.
In Paris, the Metropolitan has also been awarded the LEAD label. You recently strengthened the cooperation between Châteauform' Event and Icade through a new Climate Commitment Lease for the Docks de Paris. Will you be pursuing this CSR initiative?
B. A. - I don't want to slow down these projects, but for the time being, I'm waiting to see whether our customers have validated the Regen' Roqueux concept before go furtherThey tell us they've come specifically for that. I believe in the the company with a missionBut we remain a company, not an association. Our success in having a positive impact is also down to the robustness of our business model and our ability to attract customers. The two have to feed off each other. We're investing in all these CSR projects, because they'll give us a head start when customers start looking for these kinds of solutions on a massive scale. But today, there's still a gap between our perception of the need to go further and the customer's consumption.
Does your commitment to CSR influence your development strategy?
B. A. - Our first full carbon footprint, covering scopes 1, 2 and 3, shows that a large majority of emissions come from the transport of participants. We can always work on the rest, but this is what we need to tackle, is transport. With this in mind, we have tightened up the specifications for our future developments. In the past, we mainly looked at the distance between the castle and the city centre and between the castle and the airport. Today, proximity to a station or public transport access is becoming an important factor, especially when you're signing for 15 or 30 years. Being connected to the transport network is becoming a decisive factor.
