With business virtually at a standstill from March to December 2020, and the halls desperately empty in the first half of 2021, the Paris Region Chamber of Commerce and Industry (CCIP) has drawn up a bitter assessment of the past few months for the exhibition and conference market. For those who still have doubts, which are doubtless extremely rare, the CCIP confirms, with figures to back it up, that the event industry has been and still is one of the sectors most affected by the consequences of the pandemic.
In 2020, trade fair activity was essentially limited to the first two months of the year, apart from a very timid upturn in the early autumn, which was quickly curbed by the resurgence of the pandemic. All in all, 318 trade fairs were cancelled or "digitised". and only 128 were physically held at the 21 main Paris Region venues in 2020, compared with 434 in 2019 and 446 in 2018, to take a comparable year taking into account the biennial seasonal nature of many trade fairs. This represents a drop of 71 %, which translates into a freefall in the number of visitors - 1.8 million in 2020, compared with 9.3 million in 2018 - and economic spin-offs for the Paris Region of around €1 billion, compared with more than €5 billion two years earlier.
The number of exhibiting companies - 30,300, including 8,800 from abroad, compared with 108,200 in 2018 - also reached an all-time low The corollary is that the sales generated by trade fairs are much lower than usual, at just under €6 billion compared with over €22.5 billion in 2018. In other words, just as much 16.8 billion in unrealized sales.
However, faced with the impossibility of holding physical meetings, the sector's players have naturally switched to digital technology. According to the Office du Tourisme et des Congrès de Paris (OTCP), including events held at the main convention venues in the Paris region, but also at 179 other venues - hotels, meeting rooms and event venues, 370 conferences were held in 100 % digital or hybrid format. Taking all this into account, the OTCP estimates that 215,000 delegates physically attended an event organised in the capital, whether face-to-face or in a hybrid format, representing a decrease of 76.7 % compared to 2019.
Same cause, same effect: 2020 was just as busy. catastrophic for corporate events scheduled at the 21 main exhibition venues in the Paris region, 60 % of which could not be held in person. As a result, the number of visitors and the surface area rented fell by around 80 %.
The first half of 2021 has been de facto erased from the annals of history due to the ban on events in the capital's main MICE venues, 154 trade fairs were cancelled and the economic spin-offs lost by the Ile-de-France region amount to to almost 2 billion euros. " The economic cost of the health crisis, already high in 2020 for the trade show industry, will continue to rise in 2021. More than 470 "physical" trade shows have been or will be cancelled between March 2020 and December 2021 in the Paris Region." says Didier Kling, Chairman of the Paris Ile-de-France Chamber of Commerce and Industry, prefacing the study.
Professionals are now counting on the end of the year to return as far as possible to acceptable results. After reopening on 9 June, six trade fairs were able to take place before the summer, in the second half of June, including the emblematic Vivatech at Paris Expo Porte de Versailles. With the start of the new season comes the return of several key events such as Maison&Objet in Villepinte, the Who's Next women's fashion show at Porte de Versailles and the leisure vehicle show at Le Bourget, with IFTM Top Resa to follow in October. According to a Leads study highlighted by Viparis, 75 % of exhibiting companies intend to take part in a "physical" show in the second half of the year. A good omen for the future?
