Davos: We're only here for the 'wocial'

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Davos: We're only here for the 'wocial' (Sounds Jew'd because it is...The CSR)

At Davos, hard work collides with high-altitude socialising. It's party time for the rich and powerful at the World Economic Forum.
 

By Kate Weinberg
Published: 9:00PM GMT 22 Jan 2010

 The World Economic Forum at Davos awaits its annual influx of VIPs  Photo: PHOTOSHOT

The highest town in the Alps may seem an unlikely location for a conclave of political leaders, billionaire businessmen and philanthropic superstars to thrash out solutions to the global economy. In fact, Davos, situated at the end of Switzerland's Landwasser valley, couldn't make more symbolic sense.

Regardless of whether you believe that next week's World Economic Forum is an elitist smug-fest in which glacial intellects talk down to the rest of the world; a gathering of influential decision-makers meditating wisely from the pinnacles of success on the distant peaks of the future; or a bunch of capitalist chancers skating around on thin ice, the fact remains: those snow-capped Alps, deadly runs and icy paths have their challenges: it's easy to slip, to come too close to the edge, to fall flat on your face.

But still they come, as they have been, for a week at the end of every January for the past 40 years. The hotels and chalets of this quite ordinary Swiss ski resort empty themselves of bobble-hatted tourists, making way for swathes of international delegates, each of whom has paid more than £10,000 for the privilege of slipping and sliding along the cordoned-off zone between their pine-panelled rooms and the concrete congress centre that dominates the town centre. It is here that the forum takes place.

Business, meanwhile, is conducted in the private rooms of hotels such as the Belvedere and the Shweizerhof, with hosts ranging from the CEO of Coca-Cola to the Duke of York. Generally, the sessions in the conference centre are not speeches, but conversations: the founder of Twitter and MySpace will this year be chatting about "The Growing Influence of Social Networks," whilst bankers will be "Rethinking Risk in the Boardroom". Every other person in the hall, you feel, could have last been spotted on CNN; glancing at their name badges, you discover that they have been.

But it is during the après – conference, not ski – that the surreal element kicks in. As the congress centre empties and the lights start to twinkle on the main drag, the streets begin to resemble a set of what would surely be two very popular reality TV programmes: Politicians Dancing on Ice and, last year especially, Who wants to be a Billionaire, Get Me Out of Here. This is the time of day that you are as likely to walk into a small, dark restaurant and spot David Cameron pink-faced and fishing around for his bread cube in the cheese fondue as Bono, still in his wrap-around shades, chatting nonchalantly to Queen Rania about Aids.

Davos is, after all, the highest form of "wocial". For those who don't know – or don't have to go – the wocial is an event that is part work, part social. It is the brunch of the business world. People are casual, but nobody is entirely relaxed. There is drink, but it's unwise to get drunk. Conversations may be informal, but they are supposed to be important.

The hierarchy of wocials in Davos is tangible. Every evening a certain buzz travels through the frosty air, similar to that in a music festival, about which is the best gig in town. Private rooms in restaurants are taken over by companies and campaigners who, intent on luring investors and good press, throw red wine and rosti at the problem.

As the week progresses, the evenings get later and more rowdy. The Google party, usually held on the Friday evening, is always a hot ticket, but as with New Year's Eve, the anticipation tops the reality, which inevitably is a packed, fuggy room full of people holding their drinks above their heads to create space while rubber-necking the most rich and famous in the room, and trying to be heard over the thumping music. While Tony Blair, Bill Clinton and Bill Gates always score highly amongst the suited celebrity-spotters, there generally tends to be a new A-lister who is the talk of the town. In recent years Claudia Schiffer and Angelina Jolie have brought out the inner celeb-hunger of most attendees.

Meanwhile, quieter more intense power-fests take place in chalets rented by VVIPs at over 50,000 euros a week, a little way out of town. A collection of a dozen or so black BMWs on a driveway is the giveaway that one of the more exclusive after-parties is taking place inside: gatherings where the even more rich and powerful are as likely to be talking about the snow report for the following day as pressing global issues.

And ski, they really do. This is place where you are as liable to bump into Niall FitzGerald (chairman of Reuters) wearing an all-in-one as find yourself sharing a chairlift with a panda-eyed Peter Gabriel. For those who don't or can't ski, the toboggan run down from the Schatzalp Hotel is a favourite of some of the journalists and newspaper editors who sublimate a year's worth of competition on the business pages into negotiating hair-pin bends, and in the process, tend to ruin their suits.

Last year the Schatzalp (the art noveau hotel described in Thomas Mann's The Magic Mountain ) was the venue of the "Important Dinner for Women" which focuses on the maternal mortality campaign championed by Sarah Brown, the Prime Minsiter's wife. A hundred or so glamorously dressed women, including Naomi Campbell, PepsiCo CEO Indra Nooyi and Sarah Brown, crowded into the funicular train which took them up to the hotel, the most sensible wearing fur-lined boots, and bringing their Laboutins in their handbags.

But the most celebrated scene of after-hours Davos can be found from around two o'clock onwards every morning in the bar of Hotel Europe. The now notorious piano-man, Barry, accompanies politicians, spin doctors and tycoons as they croon drunkenly to Robbie Williams's Angels or make a request for a hackneyed Billy Joel song.

For all its slapstick moments, the tone of Davos now leans more towards tragicomedy than straight farce. Last year, among the delegates that decided to show up, there was a palpable sense of shock and fear. In between January 2008 and January 2009, the world had turned upside down and no one, not even the wise elite of the World Economic Forum, had seen it coming.

This year the theme of the conference is "Rethink, Redesign, Rebuild". Embedded in these words is a mixture of post-traumatic responsibility and sheepish acceptance that leaders and businessmen were fiddling – themselves and us – while the world burnt. Many people would like to see the words "reform, if not repent" added to the list. And of course "rebuild" has a new meaning after the recent devastation in Haiti.

On Tuesday night, Davos's snow-lined streets will become a nexus of power and wealth again. Dr Klaus Schwab created the money-spinning economic forum with the motto "Committed to improving the state of the world". This may sound grandiose – and, for what is, after all, the world's biggest wocial, a little lacking in irony.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/fina ... ocial.html