Guiding Lines: MIPIM Swallows Up Cannes

And this year MPIM was too big for Cannes to digest. Reed MIDEM, the organizer of the event, registered 29,318 delegates from 89 countries. Approximately 12 per cent more companies-exhibitors in comparison with 2007, reaching 2,687 (exhibition area – 26,842 sq.m). For comparison: the population of the city is little more than 70,000 people. And, for example, Russian town Mytishchi has a population of 170,000 people.

But for the regular, annual visitors to MIPIM such success has created serious problems. Imagine, for example, that in Moscow in addition to the 1.5 million daily visitors, every week for 4-5 days there are 3.5 million extra people. Moscow’s hotels have little more than a total of 70,000 hotel places (approximately 35,000 rooms), and the number of rooms in Cannes totals about 4,000.

It has become difficult to prepare for trips to the MIPIM. On the never-ending and constantly updated list of participants it is difficult to find those who are not just interesting but without whom it is difficult to survive and to agree on a meeting with.

For any city that welcomes visitors in numbers equal to approximately 40 per cent of its inhabitants, such an event is a serious problem. There is also a hunt for apartments that can be rented for a week, and in the harbor there are yachts (to rent a yacht for 10 people is often cheaper than booking 10 rooms in a 5* hotel).

And exhibition areas also have requirements. And therefore the rumors about constant refusals to Russian applicants for stands, and rumors about a planned campaign against Russia that have followed...are not true. Reed MIDEM, like any old, established firm, tries to keep its regular clients - even by refusing new ones. And despite this, a special separate pavilion under an order of the government of the Russian Federation has been organized for stands for Russian regions. Although, of course, they are not on the same level as the government stands of Berlin, London and Paris.

At Vedomosti’s annual conference, in a hall intended for 80 people, by visual estimations, there were 150 people, and many stood in the aisles throughout the session (only about 20 people left). So the Russian market is now very interesting. "Russia is a unique country, it is unique in Europe and in recent years has only taken what is best and the most modern from other countries," Roger Barris, managing director of investments in Europe at Merrill Lynch, says, in his opinion.

It is said: the more the merrier. Perhaps. But if two years ago it was difficult to find a free table on Kruazett embankment (where the Palace of Festivals is located) - all of them filled with MIPIM participants – then this year it was difficult to find a small table 1.5-2 km from the palace. If a year ago the tragedy was a late minibus-shuttle from the hotel to the palace, this year it is that the queue for concierge to order you a taxi has grown to 5-6 people. And at night, one participant says, in failing to find a taxi she walked to the station (a certain number of taxis are sent here). On reaching Kruazett embankment, she picked up three of her colleagues, who were going to spend the night on benches there at the sea and took them to their hotels, having left on the shores of the city (by her estimation) another 1,000 people from various countries who could not get a taxi. “In 2-3 hours,” they were told.

It is possible, that Cannes is yet to realize that such a “hospitality” policy can strongly shake the reputation of even the oldest and most famous real estate exhibition. MIPIM’s organizers have already undertaken certain efforts to diversify the visitors and exhibitors: it is has held MIPIM Asia in Hong Kong, and in December the new exhibition - MIPIM Horizons – will be launched, which calls for the involvement of investors in countries with a developing economy. It is true this exhibition will also be held in Cannes but it will not be similar. Moreover, attempts to involve those who did not manage to get stands at the main MIPIM exhibition can seem insulting: the result is a divide. The exhibition, which is focused on attracting investors would especially succeed, if it was carried out directly in the countries where there is an investment boom – in Turkey, Russia or Dubai - where currently, according to the department of tourism and commerce of the government of Dubai, there is a total of about 33,000 hotel rooms and more than 10,000 apartments, and they aren’t stopping yet.

This trend is already visible at another large exhibition – Cityscape - that started in Dubai just seven years ago. According to the information of the organizers, this year the exhibition will again grow: the participation of about 60,000 real estate market professionals from 120 countries is expected, and the area of exhibition space will reach 75,000 sq.m. Already this year, in the lead up to the October show in Dubai, a number of events have taken place - Cityscape Asia and Cityscape China.