Le Carreau du Temple, Paris For years, taking a major congress to the Paris region meant navigating two well-resourced but separate points of contact: the Paris je t’aime Convention Bureau on one side, Choose Paris Region on the other. Coordinated in practice, fragmented in appearance. That distinction mattered less than people admitted… until it didn’t.
The Guichet Unique Grands Événements, a one-stop portal for major events, recently launched jointly by the two organisations, is the fix. One team, one contact, one voice for events of 500 participants or more – across association congresses, corporate events and agency-led programmes.
In a conversation with Boardroom at IMEX Frankfurt, Corinne Menegaux, Managing Director of the Paris Je t’aime Convention Bureau, was quite straightforward about what was broken. “Till now they could either ask the region, either ask us – so that was two points of contact, even if we were talking together,” she said. “The idea is really to focus on one single contact for them, to ease the process.”
The practical upside goes beyond convenience. A consolidated front gives Paris more leverage with public authorities, at city, regional and national level, when lobbying for specific congress sectors. It also widens the destination’s footprint: the one-stop portal covers not just the dense Paris infrastructure but venues further into the Île-de-France region, including venues such as the Château de Fontainebleau, which previously sat outside the working perimeter of either bureau.
Picking Battles
None of this means Paris is chasing every congress on the market. The city has spent the past few years being deliberately selective, concentrating resources on the sectors where its local ecosystem is genuinely strong: health, technology, gastronomy, fashion, innovation. The logic is straightforward: an international congress migrates to the city where it finds the institutional and professional bedrock to support it.
Menegaux was quite clear about the focus: “We have some very strategic sectors that are the excellent sectors of the region. We invest quite a lot in these fields.” The goal is to identify local champions within each domain who can drive candidacies from the inside out – the same model that has always underpinned successful congress bids, now applied with more deliberate targeting.
The results are showing. Paris recently secured second place in a major congress bid ranking, a milestone Menegaux mentioned with visible satisfaction, noting it represents a real improvement on the Olympic period, when the city was effectively sidelined from international competition while the Games consumed the calendar and the capacity.
What Stays After the Delegates Leave
The conversation Paris is now having with associations goes further than site visits and room blocks. The city is drawing a working distinction between impact (what a congress does during its lifecycle) and legacy(what it leaves behind once it’s over). The two are connected but not the same, and Menegaux was candid that not every association arrives with a clear idea of what either looks like in practice.
“Some of them are really willing to – they’re already asking us to help to build something. Some of them are looking for a new idea. It’s always a joint initiative,” she said.
The examples she gave are grounded rather than aspirational. A cardiology congress set up a first-aid training tent outside the Hôtel de Ville, teaching CPR to Parisians. A sports association organised a city run tied to its programme. A medical meeting gathered medicines for redistribution to people in need. These weren’t afterthoughts bolted onto a programme – they were designed in. “For me this is really key, because it brings the residents included in the whole mechanism,” Menegaux said.
To make the measurement stick, Paris is piloting an impact calculator developed with Unimev, the French association of event professionals, and Choose Paris Region, tracking energy use, social outcomes and economic footprint, including where money actually stays. A survey tracking tourism spending found that 90% remains within the local economy. Menegaux wants that figure calculated event by event for major congresses.
The sustainability thread runs through the destination’s wider infrastructure too. In the wake of the Olympics, Paris’s hotels and venues rallied around a Hospitality Manifesto covering sustainability, inclusion, accessibility and visitor experience. Accessibility in particular saw rapid, politically backed progress: the city now has an app filtering venues and services by disability type, updated year-round, born out of the audit process the Games demanded.
The Ambassadors, at Ten
This year marks the 10th anniversary of the Paris Leaders Club, launched in 2016 by Viparis and Paris je t’aime to recognise the French scientists and researchers who bring international congresses to the city. Each year, a ceremony hands out the Tour Eiffel d’Or, an acknowledgement that without local academic champions, most international bids simply don’t happen.
“An international congress comes to the city where it has the local ecosystem which supports the global congress,” Menegaux said. “If not, this is very difficult to come in a place where you don’t know anything. The local association is really key, and usually it’s the local association that drives your project, makes the candidacy, raises the funds.”
What’s new at ten is that the Leaders Club may add a Legacy Award, recognising not just successful bids but what those congresses actually produced for the city. Alongside the Club, Paris is building a parallel, wider network: Les Amis de Paris, bringing together chefs, artists, entrepreneurs and tech figures who carry the city’s story internationally. The first cohort launched in Los Angeles, with 2028 in view.
It is, in Menegaux’s own framing, about soft power as much as room nights. And if Paris is getting more rigorous about measuring what its congresses contribute, it’s also getting more honest about what it’s asking associations to do – not just choose Paris, but mean something while they’re there.
To host your next event in Paris, visit parisjetaime.com/convention or contact meeting@parisjetaime.com