Beyond Beauty Paris: “A good year 2009”

Premium Beauty News - The 2009 edition of Beyond Beauty Paris was apparently a success, despite the crisis. What do you believe the reasons where for this success?

David Bondi - For three main reasons I think:

• The need to reassure oneself collectively by meeting other people, especially when the economic environment is difficult.
• The proximity between the exhibition area and the offices of the major French groups, which impacted noticeably the progression of the revisits rate. 45% of visitors revisited Beyond Beauty Paris a second day or more, this is important, and I think this also due the quality of the offer in each of the 3 shows. [1]
• The need for renewal: discovering small nuggets niche products, organic products, thinking about future product developments, etc...

Premium Beauty News - The choice of the Porte de Versailles proved to be a good one! What was the eventual number of visitors?

David Bondi - We have welcomed this year 19,000 visitors including 28% of foreigners. A better year than expected and a slight decline in international, due to lower investment travels and probably also because of fears of H1N1 flu.

When we realized that, for the L’Oreal group alone, nearly 450 people had pre-registered, we understood the importance, both of our relocation at Porte de Versailles and of an international event in Paris.

Our tradeshow with 505 exhibitors is the second biggest professional beauty event in the European market. [2]

Premium Beauty News - Very good attendance rate also at conferences including on Monday morning in the first hours! Apparently packaging and full service are hot issues.

David Bondi - These topics are at the heart of Creative, Beyond Beauty’s section devoted to suppliers. With 1/3 of the offer in packaging, 1/3 in private label and 1/3 in ingredients and other partners: the whole chain is represented. As far as conferences are concerned, our commitment is also to provide a high quality panel of speakers with free access for all professionals.

Premium Beauty News - What conclusions do you draw from this edition

David Bondi - Refocusing our offer around the Beyond Beauty Paris event featuring three shows, more clearly staged, was generally appreciated by visitors who had a better comprehension of the event.

We will beef up even more the scheduling of conferences, which is one of the strong points since the creation of the event in 2003.

We will be persistent to demonstrate to operators who are still reluctant to exhibit that the quality/price ratio is ideal in Paris, at the start of Autumn because manufacturers, for understandable reasons start to rationalize their non-media investments.