Baselworld 2017 Opens with 13% Fewer Exhibitors

Basel, Switzerland--The message from executives who spoke at the Baselworld opening press conference on Wednesday was clear: We know the situation is bad, and we don’t really want to talk about it.

The annual watch and jewelry trade show kicks off in Switzerland amid a backdrop of lagging watch sales and geopolitical and economic uncertainties.

Swiss watch exports dropped 10 percent in value terms last year following a 3 percent decline in 2015. So far this year, they’re down 8 percent, according to figures from the Federation of the Swiss Watch Industry.

Baselworld has seen attendance slide for the past three years, and the number of exhibitors at this year’s show is down 13 percent year-over-year, from 1,500 to 1,300.

Bremont and Shinola are among the notable watch companies absent from this year’s fair, as are Kering Group brands Girard-Perregaux and Ulysee Nardin, both of which exhibited at SIHH earlier this year.

But rather than focusing on the struggles the industry is facing, show organizers opted to put a positive spin on the opening of Baselworld 2017 and the changes that have been made to the show.

“There is no need to dwell at length on the past 12 months,” Baselworld Managing Director Sylvie Ritter said at Wednesday’s pre-show press conference.

She said fair organizers are instead looking to the future and recognize that Baselworld “needs to be transformed to reflect the world market.”

Transformations undertaken this year include a new space in Hall 1 for independent watchmakers and a Design Lab to showcase more unique, avant-garde pieces.

Ritter and François Thiébaud, president of the Swiss Exhibitors Committee, also mentioned several times the show’s focus on “quality over quantity” and its rejection of a number of potential exhibitors that were “not in line” with the show’s concept and did not meet its criteria, though they declined to outline specifics when asked by journalists.

Thiébaud said they rejected exhibitors “without legitimacy,” later clarifying his remarks to state that he meant fashion brands that treated watches like an accessory, not companies that produce smartwatches.

“I believe these people did not obtain the (sales) results they had planned and have given up producing such products. It (the show’s rejection of exhibitors) has nothing to do with smartwatches or connected watches,” he said.

Though show organizers acknowledged the need for Baselworld to evolve, the press conference became tense when they were asked about the possibility of