At the opening of the annual meetings in February 2025 in Paris, Promosalons organised a round table to share feedback from the Paris Olympics on the services put in place for international visitors, and to discuss how these services could be used to improve the customer experience at trade shows.

Corinne Moreau, Managing Director of Promosalons, welcomed and introduced the speakers invited to the round table:

  • Audrey Ashworth, Event Director, SIAL Paris 
  • Julien Bonne, International Project Management Director, Viparis 
  • Frédérique Giraud, Director of the Convention Bureau, Paris Je t’aime (Tourism Office)  

Exceptional resources deployed for the Olympic Games

Frédérique Giraud began by pointing out that the Paris Olympics were a great success in terms of visitor numbers, with 12 million tickets sold, 8 million visitors to the celebration sites, 26,000 journalists and 3 million tourists. There was no shunning of the destination during the Olympics, as the figures show an increase of +16% on previous periods, indicating a positive impact on tourism. Frédérique emphasised that the visitor experience was exceptional, with an opening ceremony watched by half the world’s population, and great pride shared among Parisians and visitors alike.

Exceptional resources and personnel were deployed for the Olympics, including training for volunteers with deliverables, and a training circuit to ensure they had the right hospitality fundamentals. All these volunteers contributed greatly to the lively atmosphere and good vibes during the Olympic Games.  A 24/7 hotline was also set up to assist participants and visitors in several languages.

Paris Je t’aime has also developed the “My Paris Je T’aime” web app, an easy-to-use companion for visitors who don’t need to be connected to the internet, offering information about the Olympic venues in an accessible version.

Julien Bonne then shared his experience at Viparis, which was co-organiser on several sites involved in the Olympic and Paralympic Games, including the Paris Expo – Porte de Versailles exhibition centre (renamed Arena Paris Sud for the occasion), which he managed.

Viparis was heavily involved in managing traffic flows and ensuring security during the Games, in collaboration with various authorities and using technology, including flow studies, heat maps and hypotheses to anticipate peak traffic times, in order to ensure constant fluidity and minimise constraints for visitors. The signage was especially worked on in collaboration with the City of Paris, and made a major contribution to helping visitors find their way around.

Julien also mentioned the close collaboration with the authorities: the Cojo, the region, the city of Paris, Île-de-France Mobilité, and the Paris police prefecture to anticipate and manage closures and crowd movements.. 

Historic session and new services for SIAL Paris 2024

The Paris Olympics then gave way to the trade shows of the last quarter. Audrey Asworth described the record edition of Sial Paris 2024, with 270,000 sq.m. of exhibition space, 7,500 exhibitors from 127 countries and 185,000 visitors from 194 countries, underlining the international scope of the event, with 90% of exhibitors and 70% of visitors being international. Audrey pointed out that these participants come for the show as much as for the destination; their personal experience plays a major role in their satisfaction with the event, even if the show organiser is graded on elements that are not all within its remit.

SIAL Paris 2024 has put in place a number of services for visitors, including the sectorisation of the show to make it easier to find their way around and improve attendee satisfaction (with interactive maps in particular), additional shuttle buses, with additional service points in Paris to improve accessibility and reduce transport-related irritants, as well as a hotline to assist visitors and exhibitors and help with visas. This was widely relayed by the Promosalons network, which promotes SIAL in 45 countries and has been collaborating since 1968.

Briefing the teams and service providers beforehand ensured a warm and efficient welcome, with an emphasis on the ‘smile’ effect. For example, exhibitors were welcomed in music with artists performing every morning. The ‘guinguette’ on the esplanade was not just a convivial space, but a way of keeping a certain number of visitors in Paris Nord Villepinte exhibition centre, rather than having them all take the train at the same time. With the help of the Convention Bureau, SIAL is also offering visitors a range of addresses to help them discover traditional Paris, as well as Paris that is a little more confidential, offering both gastronomic and cultural discoveries.

What plans are there to extend this experience? How can we improve the welcome at our Parisian sites?

Frédérique Giraud presented the current projects of Paris Je T’aime, reminding us of the collective challenge represented by this work on welcoming international tourists: 

  • The Hospitality Manifesto, a formalised commitment signed by 1,600 members, including hotels, cultural venues and museums, to improve the customer experience, the ecological transition and work with the local ecosystem.
  • The adaptation of the My Paris Je T’aime application for B2B events, offering information on hotels, transport and cultural ticketing close to event venues, with multilingual and accessible versions.
  • The Cléo Impact calculator launched with Choose Paris-Region and Unimev to measure the economic spin-offs, carbon footprint and legacy of events, helping to assess and improve the impact of actions on the region. When event organisers, exhibitors and visitors come to Paris, they are also going to discover an association, a federation, schools and students, and this has an impact on the region.

Finally, the tourist information points have been developed with a slightly different territorial network, using Parisian newsagents.
 
Julien Bonne for Viparis then detailed future plans to improve the accessibility of the sites, including: 

  • The arrival of metro line 17 of the Grand Paris Express, scheduled to serve Viparis sites such as Le Bourget and Villepinte by 2028, considerably improving their accessibility.
  • The extension of metro line 14 to Orly airport 
  • Julien also mentioned the improvements brought about by the new RER E line, which will considerably reduce journey times between Gare du Nord and Porte Maillot or La Défense.

In addition, an innovation unit within Viparis is looking into the services of tomorrow for the different populations who visit the sites, in order to improve their experience. Julien Bonne mentions Viparis’ objective of improving the catering offer on their sites, focusing on speed, diversity and accessibility. A collaboration with the start-up Ezymob will enable the creation of a web app that will make it easier for visiting exhibitors to get to the sites and provide information on services around the show (taxis, cloakrooms, etc.). 

From Comexposium, the organiser of SIAL, Audrey emphasised the importance of CSR initiatives (Sial Paris 2024 has put in place 110 CSR action lines) and innovation to improve visitor reception, with examples such as: 

  • Food collection: 30 tons of foodstuffs not used by Sial Paris exhibitors were collected and redistributed by the Red Cross, demonstrating the show’s commitment to CSR.
  • The use of data to improve matchmaking between exhibitors and buyers, with conferences and content translated into several languages thanks to AI, facilitating international interactions.

In conclusion, the speakers agreed on the importance of coordination between the various bodies, which has been done well for the Olympic Games but not enough for the major French trade fairs. Other destinations do a better job of integrating professional events into their city’s strategy than a capital like Paris, which hosts a huge number of events. However, one example of a scheme that already exists is the Welcome Pack, created in 2009 by Viparis, Paris Region and Aéroports de Paris, and later joined by the Accor group. Around fifty trade fairs a year benefit from this scheme, according to criteria based mainly on the volume of international visitors. The services offered include a welcome desk at the airport with trade show signage, shuttle services to the event, a welcome desk when arriving at the hotel, etc.

Feedback from the Paris Olympics has improved this ability to unite and should benefit the destination over the coming years, both in terms of economic spin-offs and in terms of a positive legacy for business tourism.