How to Find the Right Local Partner for Your Event in Paris?

Skybar terrace at Pullman Paris Montparnasse © Arnaud Laplanche

HQ has already been to Paris for conferences, site inspections and ahead of the Olympics... but in early September, the Paris je t'aime Convention Bureau proposed something different, featuring some real-life stories of legacy impacts the city is driving forward. In the following lines, you will meet some of the finest local partners, institutions, and ambassadors who are making remarkable strides in areas such as medicine, transport, social inclusion, and digital health.

Manuel A. Fernandes reports from Paris

The business events industry generates a significant social impact, both directly and indirectly. Its reach goes far beyond economic activity, extending to aspects such as education, inclusion, scientific development, technological progress and urban planning. Academic, scientific and professional events promote the exchange of ideas and the transfer of knowledge in various areas, driving new projects, start-ups and solutions to social and technical problems. For this reason, many cities have been striving to shift the focus of their bids towards a more local component, paying attention to their ecosystems, while associations have come to see these destinations as real partners in conference planning. But how to find out where they are and what potential they can offer?

To meet this challenge, Paris je t’aime – Convention Bureau organised its first Legacy Eductour, mapping out a network of cohesive partners with value propositions to drive social change. For this two-day site inspection, a select group of associations and federations (mostly French) were invited, along with media representatives, to learn about Paris's best practices in areas as diverse as accessibility, inclusion, technology, and health. Covering an area of 105 km² and with a population of around 2.1 million, this legacy tour took us to various corners and arrondissements of the city, from the Porte de Versailles (home to Paris Expo, France's largest exhibition centre) to the vicinity of Saint-Denis (site of the Olympic Village). On the Brussels-Paris route, the easiest and fastest way to travel is still by train, with Eurostar covering the distance in around one hour and twenty minutes. The company connects the French capital to cities such as London and Amsterdam, forming a metropolitan network which we recently covered on the occasion of its 30th anniversary.
 

Inclusion, Innovation & Care

It all started on a pleasant Thursday morning, 11 September, upon arrival at the Gare du Nord. Then we had breakfast at Café Joyeux, which (we quickly realised) was not just any place. The social responsibility agenda has been gaining ground in major European cities, urging businesses and entrepreneurs to adopt fairer and more inclusive practices for people with mental and cognitive disabilities. Born with the ambition of giving them a real, paid and rewarding job, Joyeux is the first family of café-restaurants and coffee brand to promote the professional inclusion of people with disabilities – mainly Down syndrome and autism. Initially founded in Rennes in late 2017, the restaurant has opened several cafés in Portugal and France, including this one on Rue Paul Cézanne, where we attended the group's first introductions.
 

From there, we headed to a medical district in the south of the city to visit the medtech advances being made at Assistance publique – Hôpitaux de Paris (AP-HP). PRIM3D is a 3D printing platform – led by Director of Operations, Delphine Prieur – which offers a shared service for engineering, prototyping and production of customised parts with specific expertise in healthcare. Since 2023, this project has been supporting teams from AP-HP's 38 hospitals, as well as researchers, clinicians and start-ups in the creation of innovative devices and cutting-edge tools to reduce health risks. At the former Broussais Hospital facilities, we were able to see first-hand the anatomical replicas, prostheses and ultra-realistic simulators that are turning a new page in medical treatment, research and education in order to meet the needs of patients for whom an industrial solution does not yet exist.

Half an hour later, we were off to lunch at Pullman Paris Montparnasse, one of the city's largest hotels, with over 6,000 m² of meeting and event space, 50 modular rooms, and a 750 m² Grand Ballroom, all equipped with state-of-the-art technology and in-house catering. Also noteworthy are the Grand Studio, ideal for conferences and dinners, the innovative C2 Immersive, perfect for hybrid events, and the Green Floor, with 800 m² of outdoor areas. Part of the Maine-Montparnasse complex, the hotel has 957 elegant rooms, a rooftop with panoramic views, several restaurants, and a modern fitness centre.
 

If you are part of a medical association in the field of oncology, the following institution may be the right partner for your conference. The Paris Committee of the French League Against Cancer offers a range of care services for people with cancer and their loved ones, ranging from psychosocial support, adapted physical activities and nutrition to financial assistance and back-to-work support. Here we had the chance to visit their new pioneering social lab designed to serve the most vulnerable patients and combat cancer-related inequalities: La Maison (pictured above). Located at Porte de la Villette, this help centre offers free services to cope with the disease in the best possible conditions, while raising awareness of risk factors and promoting screening.

Later, it was time to check in at the Paris Marriott Rive Gauche with its first-class amenities on four complementary floors. The hotel has 757 rooms and a conference centre with over 4,500 m² of modular event space. In total, it has 33 event rooms and 50 breakout rooms, the largest of which – Scène ABC – can accommodate up to 2,000 people in a theatre configuration. In the basement, we were able to take a closer look at Moir (see one of its brand customisations below), an interactive maze for immersive gatherings designed for brand activations, corporate meetings, team building and product launches. Within an atmosphere where participants are also actors, Moir offers an experiential narrative combining adaptable spaces, holographic intervention and cutting-edge creative technologies. Dinner was served on the rooftop of the Hotel EKLO near Paris Expo Porte de Versailles. This eco-friendly and economical hotel has 304 rooms of different types to cater to both business and leisure travellers. With a relaxed style that contrasts with other franchises, it also has three meeting rooms and the “French Kiss” restaurant on the top floor with an outdoor area that can be privatised and accommodates around 230 people.
 

Medtech & Accessibility

The following morning, Friday 12 September, enshrined the conversations held over these two days in a solemn atmosphere. For Paris, this legacy impact journey reached its peak after the 2024 Olympic Games in venues such as the Grand Palais, or in neighboring departments such as Seine-Saint-Denis (check out our Vivian Xu's report on HQ #114). In light of these legacy achievements, our delegation was invited to a roundtable at the Hôtel de Ville, the city hall. Besides addressing the carbon footprint that large congresses have on the destination and the strategic synergies between scientific societies and health associations, Paris je t'aime also unwrapped the Cleo Impact, a state-ofthe- art calculator available to event organisers to assess their social and environmental spillovers.

One of these transformations resulting from the post-Olympic legacy was the H4 Hotel Wyndham Paris Pleyel Resort, where we had lunch in the stunning skybar. The Pleyel tower offers 697 rooms and suites spread over 40 floors, four restaurants, a swimming pool and a gym, all with a unique panoramic view of Paris. In the parallel building, the unit offers a 10,000 m² modular conference centre with a maximum capacity for 2,600 people, 16 meeting rooms, including a 1,180 m² plenary room with an 8-metre ceiling, suitable for tradeshows and exhibitions. All equipped with audiovisual equipment, in-house catering and state-of-the-art technology.
 

At the intersection of health and technology, we stumbled upon a world-class centre for research, innovation, and entrepreneurship in the Quartier Saint-Lambert. Born out of a public-private partnership, PariSanté Campus is a French hotbed of digital health, designed to stimulate the production and use of health data, e-health training, and high-impact economic and social solutions. With the presence of institutions such as Inserm, Inria and Health Data Hub, the campus is a key intellectual partner for French research and development in santé numérique. As such, it features modular rooms and auditoriums that can be used for project launches, symposiums, scientific meetings, workshops or hackathons, related to innovation in health, AI, big data and public policies.

We ended this tour witnessing the progress made in accessibility that the city has developed under the Grand Paris Express (GPE) mega-project. La Fabrique du Métro, in Saint-Ouen-sur-Seine, has become a space for mediation and public demonstration in the exhibition of this enormous cross-cutting plan to expand mobility in the Île-de-France region, improve connections between the suburbs and the centre of Paris, and thus alleviate the heavy passenger traffic that affects a large part of the residents. La Fabrique houses an interactive tour with models, life-size models, immersive projections and other installations so that visitors can immerse themselves in the technical and chronological aspects that will lead to the construction of four new automatic lines, 68 new stations and the extension of the famous metro line 14. The GPE will be a turning point for the Parisian transport network, unlocking peripheral areas, reducing inequalities and promoting the urban regeneration of neighbourhoods around stations.
 

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