Originally published December 2021.
During the Great Lockdown of 2020, les Echos reported the touristic town of Cannes was one of the five places in France worst affected, alongside Disneyland and Paris CDG airport. Last week, after two years away, I got to see a different-looking Cannes. During the past 20 months of restricted international travel, the iconic Carlton, Martinez and JW Marriott hotels have all chosen to have major Botox treatments. Even the top of the famous rue d’Antibes is now scarred by some empty stores.
In the league table of coronavirus winners and losers, retail property, like Cannes, is one of the worst affected. Last week’s MAPIC trade fair in Cannes – Europe’s leading retail property event – was a tangible barometer of how fast the retail industry is reshaping itself. The rejuvenated event felt almost unrecognisable from its storied past. Now 26 years old, a humbler MAPIC looked younger and certainly much slimmer.
“Retail MAPIC has a more bohemian feel than its better-known big brother – with less black leather shoes and more moccasins and sneakers”
Le ‘MAPIC’ (the market for ‘professionnels de l’immobilier de commerce‘) is the creative little sister of MIPIM, the springtime Cannes event for the wider property industry. The same company organises both conferences, but retail MAPIC has a more bohemian feel than its better-known big brother – with less black leather shoes and more moccasins and sneakers.
To appreciate last week’s sea change in Cannes, it’s useful to recall what used to happen there. A normal MAPIC had over two thousand retailers, as well as local authorities, developers, investors and advisors. Hundreds of booths would spread across multiple levels of the congress centre, many with elaborate models of shopping centre projects. The indoor salon would spill outdoors to tents on beaches and chartered superyachts. After sunset, lavish parties lined the length of the Croisette, with green strobe lights and amuse-bouches competing for attention with fashion models strutting a catwalk. Guests drank Champagne and shouted to be heard over the loud music. Large egos were never far away, especially at the final evening’s MAPIC Awards ceremony.
This year in Cannes, nearly all of that was gone. With very few exceptions, MAPIC 2021 had no awards, no parties, no yachts, no expensive booths. The absence of ego and shopping centre developers was especially telling. What was not in Cannes was as significant as what was.
With the surging fifth wave of Covid, there were many last-minute no-shows. Nonetheless, official numbers say around 4,000 people signed up – including a few hundred who tuned in online. Those professionals physically in Cannes bumped knuckles (sometimes awkwardly) and widened their horizons by sharing experience with fellow travellers from over 40 countries. After a long and mentally fatiguing hibernation, it was a booster jab for the mind.
Importantly (and somewhat unexpectedly), Cannes felt Covid-safe. The health protocols were slick, with sanitary passes scanned swiftly and mask-wearing now automatic. The organisers certainly got lucky with the sunny weather, since a cold, wet and windy December event would have had a claustrophobic vibe. Instead, long outdoor chats in the sea air helped a sense of social distancing.
With fewer numbers, most attendees remained around the Palais des Festivals and the nearby Hotel Majestic, the natural home of the MAPIC diva and the €44 breakfast buffet (self-service!). The Palais, recently used as a vaccination centre, was shuttered to funnel visitors to Le Riviera, the premium exhibition area making the most of the Mediterranean. The new MAPIC TV studio overlooking the sea had real wow factor and the conferences filmed there remain available on-demand, with punchy commercials for caramelised chicken wings. The new leaner and more cerebral MAPIC appears to be repositioning itself as a kind of Davos-sur-Mer for retail property. Thought leadership was certainly more prominent.
The coastal town of Cannes will likely prosper again, but the glory days of the conference may just be over. A local economy heavily dependent on salons (the famous Cannes Film Festival alone attracts over 200,000 annual visitors) will be hoping that last week’s number of physical attendees – perhaps 30-40% of the past – was more about a lack of confidence in retail property than the long-term outlook for such events.
‘Leaner and cleaner’ may even be the future mantra of all trade fairs and especially business conferences. Cannes’ shopkeepers, bartenders, restaurant owners and taxi drivers will anxiously follow registrations for the March MIPIM and hope that Covid restrictions melt away in the warmth of spring. For the wider property industry, the 2022 MIPIM will prove a key test of appetite for trade fairs by the beach.
