A year ago the CICG reopened in all its splendour after being closed for a twelve-month renovation period and CHF38 million of investments. Many changes have been undertaken and the Centre is ready to welcome the international community to modern conference facilities in Geneva.
Since that time, the CICG has hosted some 148 events with more than 35,000 participants corresponding to an income approaching CHF5 millions. The average duration of these events was just over three days, which has important implications for the hotel and restaurant trade in the city of Geneva, explains Ms Isabelle Aubert, Director of the CICG.
« Talking only about the first three quarters of 2006, we hosted far more conferences and events than we had foreseen in our plans ; initially 104 events were going to take place in our premises, whereas the actual number reached nearly 150. We have also expanded our clientele to include more medical, pharmaceutical and biotechnical conferences, in addition to reaching out to the private sector.
As a general trend, the events tend to last much longer than in the past, an average of 3.5 days, which implies more than 140,000 hotel nights. Due to the new structure of the centre, we are also capable of organizing more and more events simultaneously without them interfering with each other.
However, the Conference service business is evolving considerably and we are constantly facing fiercer competition from other European cities. Nevertheless, we remain optimistic for the year 2007. »
