René Kamm


René Kamm, Basel and SIHH
BaselWorld is just one of forty-odd shows held annually at the exhibition centre, but it’s by far the biggest. By the time I met up with René Kamm, the show was successfully under way and he was looking relaxed because sales were proving to be better than expec-tations.
The planned new building extension of the current facilities has been delayed by a year and will now be fully functional in 2013. Nevertheless, BaselWorld is still a far cry from the days when booths with sausages, wine, pots, pans and lÄckerli were all to be found scattered amongst the watches and jewellery.
The old guard at what was then the Basel Fair was reluctant to make any changes despite the obvious need and the fact that Alain-Dominique Perrin, Cartier’s CEO at the time, badgered them incessantly to do something about the smell of barbequed schublig and French fries that drifted constantly onto the only two-tiered stand, made little difference. Perrin envisioned the Fair as an elegant showcase for watches and jewellery and after five years of pleading, finally threatened to leave the Fair if nothing was done.
Perrin’s pleas and threats went unheeded and in 1991, Cartier, Piaget, Baume & Mercier, Gérald Genta and ‘newcomer’ Franck Muller inaugurated the SIHH in Geneva. Quickly joined by Audemars Piguet and the expanding ‘Cartier Group’ as the Richemont Group was then called, the SIHH offered the perfect setting for both buying and selling and there wasn’t a sausage in sight.
It wasn’t until the much younger and energetic René Kamm and his team took over the reins in Basel that any major changes to the show came about. Today, BaselWorld is what Perrin had envisaged, only more so. Two storey stands are the norm now and elegance is brilliantly united with a go-ahead management team that has made BaselWorld the event to attend.
I asked René Kamm over lunch whether or not he could cater for the seventeen exhibitors of the SIHH if they suddenly wanted to come back to Basel.
“The SIHH has already been booked in Geneva for next year, but if they did come to me looking for space for next year we could certainly find a temporary solution. If we were asked to integrate them into the 2011 show, we’d find a definite solution,” Kamm said with a smile. “What you have to remember is that our interest is in the industry as a whole and personally I think that it would make more sense to have everyone here in Basel together.”
I then mentioned a couple of the reasons cited by exhibitors both past and present for choosing Geneva over Basel – the problem of hotel rooms and restaurant facilities. With a wry look he replied, “There are more hotel rooms in Basel than there were in 1991. However, that’s really not the problem because there is not one more retailer or one more journalist than in the old days. The same number of retailers and the same number of journalists from around the world attend and therefore, as far as I can see, the only problem would be for their staff members, and that is something I’m sure could be resolved.
“However, I believe that today the most important element is the cost factor. Attending BaselWorld would be far more cost effective for the SIHH exhibitors since first of all they would no longer have to pay for their clients expenses as they do in Geneva since visitors pay their own way in Basel, and secondly, the space rental and stand construction would certainly be far less at our show than is spent in Geneva. There’s another point I think some of the SIHH exhibitors would appreciate: it would make more sense if the SIHH exhibitors were not all placed together in the very same setting with exactly the same décor. In Geneva all the brand’s look the same from the exterior, they don’t have the opportunity to project their own image as do the exhibitors at BaselWorld.”
And so ladies and gentlemen of the jury, what’s your verdict? Do you think that in the interest of the Swiss watch industry the ‘big boys’ should make life easier for all concerned by concentrating their substantial and valuable offerings in one venue, or should they continue to make buyers travel to Geneva in January and then spend more money when they are almost obliged for business reasons to travel to Basel a couple of months later?
Given that the industry is going through a difficult time, my personal feeling, for what it’s worth, is that all you decision makers out there should forget your ‘pride’ and simply sit down and thrash things out over a beer or two and, in a friendly and business-like manner, agree to put the show on in one venue. Why not make life easier for both yourselves and the retailers, after all they are your bread and butter.
In short ladies and gentlemen, as far as BaselWorld is concerned, nobody does it better.
SO GET YOUR ACT TOGETHER!
Source: Europa Star June-July 2009 Magazine Issue