Baselworld’s own hospitality team has been handling the collaboration with hotels, restaurants and other service providers in the surroundings of the trade show. “The availability of lodging during Baselworld is a frequent topic in many of my discussions with exhibitors and visitors”, says Baselworld’s Managing Director Michel Loris-Melikoff. “We must urgently achieve transparency and fairness here so that we can achieve better conditions than in the past for exhibitors, visitors and journalists who are staying in Basel during the show.”

The objective is to persuade as many hotels as possible to become partners of the show. In return for their partnership, the hotels agree not to raise their prices above a certain threshold and to demand neither a minimum length of stay nor the obligatory booking of additional services.

One-on-one discussions with the hoteliers have been very positive thus far. More than twenty hotels in Basel have agreed to participate in the cooperative scheme. A large percentage of the partner hotels proactively suggested potential models. “We are very pleased by this initiative and the positive signal sent by the hoteliers”, says Baselworld’s Managing Director Michel Loris-Melikoff. “They are aware of Baselworld’s importance for the city and they want to work together with us to find solutions that will bring the prices of overnight stays onto a fair and transparent level.”

By the end of October, the criteria for the partnership will be defined collaboratively and with accompanying support from Basler Hotelierverein and Basel Tourismus [Basel Hotel Association and Basel Tourism]. “All hotels are cordially invited to participate in this cooperation”, Michel Loris-Melikoff says.