Back in the 1970s, Davos (shorthand for the World Economic Forum’s annual shindig in the Swiss Alps) was a boring management conference, frequented by strait-laced economists and company men, nothing like the glitzy, champagne-saturated affair it is today.
The forum’s evolution into billionaire playground and premier networking event on the planet is largely down to its founder Klaus Schwab, a German engineer who, according to Vanity Fair, “developed the forum from an earnest meeting of policy wonks into a glittering assembly of the world’s richest people”.
However, it has become a victim of its own success with many individuals and hangers-on descending on the small town to hold side events without taking part in the main forum or paying its hefty accreditation fees. While attendees, contractors and staff are said to number in the region of 10,000, the town’s population is said to swell by as much as 30,000 during the annual gathering because of these gatecrashers.
Until now. Earlier this year, local residents voted for new regulations curtailing who can rent out buildings or set up temporary structures during the four-day annual gathering. The new rules allow only official WEF partners to rent premises along the Davos promenade.
Some locals are concerned the clampdown will have a negative impact on the local subletting market with apartments and shop spaces commanding top-dollar rents during Davos week.
Organisers have also increased the price of admission tenfold for some guests in a bid to try to grab a greater share of the corporate finances swashing in and around the event.
The price of access passes for second-tier attendees in the entourage of the corporate leaders who make up Davos’s official participants will rise from 100 Swiss francs (€106) in previous years to SFr1,000 from this year. “It feels like a cash grab,” said one insider.
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