Two global public-health congresses

15,000 delegates. Then again, on another continent.

A global public-health congress held in Africa, with 15,000 delegates arriving from around the world. The same client then asked us to do it again in Paris, for 5,000.

The hard part of a congress this size is not the congress. It is the city. Fifteen thousand people arrive inside about seventy-two hours, into a hotel market that was never built to absorb them — on separate flights, from different continents, each with a different itinerary and a different idea of what they have paid for.

We handled accommodation, transport and touring for a substantial share of that delegate population.

The work that made it possible happened two years earlier. Mapping capacity across the whole city, not just the obvious hotels. Contracting inventory before the market tightened. Testing the movement plan against the things that actually go wrong — a flight bank landing late, a venue moving a session, a shuttle route closing on the morning.

By the time the doors opened, most of the job was already done. That is the point of the preparation.

Paris was a different market with different constraints. We applied what the first congress had taught us.

The client came back for the second one. That is the outcome we would point to.