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While representatives for government leaders, not-for-profits and the media attend Davos gratis, corporate executives must pay for the privilege of rubbing elbows with the likes of Pervez Musharaff, the president of Pakistan, and, of course, each other.
Such rarified company comes with a big price tag. Merely to be eligible for an invitation, a corporate leader must pay an annual fee of 42,500 Swiss francs, or nearly $39,000. On top of that, he or she has to pay an additional $20,000 or so to attend the conference. (That’s just the cost of admission — private planes, limousines and fancy ski outfits are, of course, extra.)
And what if business executives want to get invited to some private sessions for industry leaders? The annual cost for that is close to $230,000.
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The tab rises to about $412,000 (450,000 Swiss francs) if you want to be counted among the conference’s strategic sponsors and bring a delegation of up to five along for the fun. Among this year’s strategic partners are James Dimon, the chief executive of JP Morgan Chase; K.V. Kamath, the chief executive of the ICICI Bank of India, David J. O’Reilly, the chief of Chevron USA, and Wang Jianzhou, the chief executive of China Mobile Communications.
Put it all together and it’s a substantial pool of cash for the World Economic Forum, which is registered as a Swiss not-for-profit and was founded by Klaus Schwab, a German-born academic who is a mechanical engineer and economist by training.
How big is the business of Davos? The World Economic Forum reported that it brought in 114.6 million Swiss francs ($105.1 million) in the 2006-2007 fiscal year. Of that total, 27.8 million francs was from membership fees, 30.2 million francs was from participation fees and 50.9 million francs was from partnership fees.
The bill for running Davos and the forum’s other events around the world was also high. According to its annual report, the organization spent 111.8 million Swiss francs in 2006-2007, with about 52 million going toward "activity-related costs."
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