But reports of Baselword demise appeared to be somewhat premature. At of the end of February, almost 500 brands had committed to the Swiss show, which will run this year at the Messe Basel from March 21 to 26. While that is quite substantially down deom the number of exhibitors of two years ago, among them are leading watch brands, including Rolex, Patek Philippe, TAG Heuer, Citizen, Seiko, Casio, Zenith, and Hublot, as while as a host of exclusive jewelry brands, such as Graff, Roberto Coin, Messika, Picchiotti and Chopard.
NEW BASEL MANAGEMENT LOOKS TO REVITALIZE SHOW
Baselworld clearly is in a rebuilding mode, under a new management team that appears to be decidedly more attentive to the concerns of both exhibitors and visitors about the cost of visiting and doing business at the show and in the city. This includes lobbying hotels and restaurants to not inflate prices during the show, as well as bringing on-site catering onto the show floor, rather than having at the edges of the show and outside the halls.
The show’s management has also come to terms with now appears to be a be a general trend with major industry trade fairs, in that they recognize that in the in the current business environment major trade fairs typically are no longer are made up of a single event, but rather series of shows taking place in the same geographic location over several days or a couple of weeks. Such is the case in Hong Kong, and even more so in Las Vegas, where a series of shows now take place simultaneously in hotels and exhibition centers in close proximity to the city’s famous Strip.
Given its limited infrastructure and number of hotel rooms, Basel itself would struggle to host more than one show. But with its supremely good transportation infrastructure, other cities in Switzerland have come into play. There was surprise, therefore, when the Baselworld management
