Swatch pulls out of annual Baselworld trade fair
Print Edition
SWISS watchmaker Swatch Group is quitting the annual Baselworld watch and jewelry trade fair, the NZZ am Sonntag newspaper reported yesterday, calling time on an event that has been a fixture of the luxury industry calendar for a century.
Omega maker Swatch is the most important exhibitor at Baselworld, which traces its history back to 1917, but more and more brands are deserting the fair held every March, blaming high costs and insufficient returns.
“The Swatch Group has decided not to be present at Baselworld from 2019,” the newspaper quoted Swatch chief executive Nick Hayek as saying.
Swatch Group confirmed the decision in a statement.
The portfolio of Swatch, based in Biel in western Switzerland, spans the expensive Breguet, more affordable Longines and plastic Swatch timepieces.
Some of Swatch’s high-end competitors have left Basel for a rival fair in Geneva, but Hayek said traditional annual watch fairs were no longer useful in a more transparent and fast-paced world.
Major exhibitors such as Swatch budget about 50 million francs (US$50.3 million) for each Baselworld, to cover travel and hotel expenses for staff and guests, the paper said.
“Annual watch fairs, as they exist today, no longer make much sense,” Swatch Group said in its statement.
“This does not mean that they should disappear. But it is necessary that they reinvent themselves, responding appropriately to the current situation and demonstrating more dynamism and creativity. At the moment, the trade fairs are failing to do so.”
Hayek, a famously outspoken and flamboyant character in a staid and conservative industry, cited the cost of the fair’s 430-million-franc exhibition building as a reason for the decision to withdraw.
“We are not there to amortize an expensive hall designed by (Swiss architects) Herzog & de Meuron,” Hayek told the paper.
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