How would you describe MICE activity since the start of the year?
Laurent Gabard - This is a crisis market, with a very strong focus on the average shopping basket. This is stable, or even falling slightly. As far as Rejolt specifically is concerned, our business is growing, with the arrival of new customers and a fine dynamic. For the past few weeks, I've had a feeling that business is picking up again, I wasn't really expecting it. CPerhaps it's linked to our customer portfolio, or to companies that have put their projects on hold and are once again considering it important to bring their teams together... We'll have to take stock in January. But on the whole we're feeling a lot of wait-and-see attitude, a lot of decisions that are taking longer than usual. So there are still quite a few requests, but decisions are being delayed: a classic crisis situation in the final analysis.
What event formats are requested?
Laurent Gabard - In terms of the types of requests, this year there has been a really strong development in team building activities. We had already seen this last year, and it was confirmed in 2025. The number of participants per event is also rising, from around 10 to 12%. So there's a real need to bring the teams together more. Today, we work a lot in hybrid mode, which means that people need to see each other, and the study we conducted with the Peclers Paris consultancy agency shows this. The younger generations in particular have really need to get to know the teams. And these events also serve that purpose. I think there's also another aspect: in the face of the crisis, we need to bring people together. more teams to mobilise them around short- and medium-term issues, and set up action plans. And it's easier to mobilise staff when we see each other than during a videoconference.
And yet we were promised the advent of "all-technology" in the wake of the crisis. In the end, we're seeing a return to the basics and to face-to-face learning...
Laurent Gabard - I completely agree. But it's not a return to traditional events in the sense of seminars, plenary sessions, meeting rooms and so on. We feel that companies want to surprise, and above all their employees are asking for it. They want to be captivated, they want more human contact, more meaning, and less "show off" and "top down". A number of studies confirm that, in the same way that The new generations are taking a very close look at what a company is doing in terms of CSR, and how it organises an event.
The tool developed by Rejolt with La Poste is designed to capitalise on these trends...
Laurent Gabard - La Poste has been a Rejolt partner for many years. They already had a programme, They had already been organising team-building events with associations under the banner "Déclic - mon temps de travail solidaire". They wanted to modernise their CSR approach. So we worked with them to ensure that on the platform we could find associations offering to organise team-leading events around their specific areas of interest: health, the environment, bird protection, disability, etc. These are really CSR issues, and the team-building event in question will open up a number of areas for employees to think about.
Will La Poste have "exclusivity" over this approach?
Laurent Gabard - The associations we approached told us that they would be willing to offer these CSR team building activities to other companies too. So some of them will also be visible to other customers. But the work we've done has really been a joint project with La Poste Group's CSR department. There's a lot of demand, but we won't be doing 50% of team building for solidarity. The idea is to do 5, 10, maybe 15%, and really raise employee awareness.
What are Rejolt's other development priorities?
Laurent Gabard - The big challenges are linked to the development of Rejolt, and we are going to launch in Europe from the beginning of 2026. In terms of content, we now cover the entire scope of events, and we are also now integrating a pool of agencies. events listed on the platform. And of course we are constantly adding new venues, often ahead of other platforms. We aim to be ahead of the game in every city, not just in the Paris region.
In addition to this catalogue, what are the battlegrounds for the various events marketplaces?
Laurent Gabard - From several angles. It just so happens that we are really positioned for very large accounts. We have expertise that goes beyond the marketplace, search and booking. We have expertise in event purchasing management, with reporting, integration with corporate transactional flows, ERP, etc. And we want to stay ahead in this field. And we want to stay ahead in this field. Our second big difference is the number of service providers we list: we're clearly way ahead of most other platforms, ranging from restaurants to event agencies and related services. The specifier can organise a lot of things with our platform, and that's really our spearhead. And, like everyone else, we're working hard on the user experience. There's no secret about it: the user has to be satisfied, and we get very good feedback.
What about the integration with the business travel ecosystem that we have long been promised?
Laurent Gabard - We've been talking about this for a long time, but these are quite different businesses. When it comes to MICE, there are really multiple points of contact for a single project. So ultimately, the complexity lies not in the tools, but rather in the content of an event. The needs are different, and so are the service providers and the venues... When it comes to travel, I think there's quite a lot of technical complexity when it comes to integration, broadcasting and distribution. We're really dealing with a problem linked to the business itself, i.e. the number of service providers and above all the movements on a file. Every day at the event, between the time of booking and payment of the invoice, there is movement. So you have to be able to manage these flows. That's what we know how to do, and what we want to do very well.
Hasn't AI changed this distinction?
Laurent Gabard - Of course, we can improve the speed with which we search for proposals and service providers. But when it comes to working on reliable reporting, quality data and payment, you still need high-performance tools, so we invest a lot in R&D in this area.
La TMC consolidation Couldn't this lead to an "extension of the fight" into the MICE arena? Perhaps via a new takeover...
Laurent Gabard - I think everyone is thinking about everything at the moment. Some see it as a new opportunity for concentration. I think the market is very large and today, above all, we mustn't forget that it's a market that's still in the process of being equipped. In other words, many companies work directly with service providers. The equipment rate is not the same as for travel. So I think we've still got some great years ahead of us!
