Deauville: When events become the driving force behind the local economy

In an unstable eco­nom­ic and polit­ic­al cli­mate, events are con­firm­ing their cent­ral role in cor­por­ate strategy. In Deau­ville, the Centre Inter­na­tion­al de Deau­ville (CID) per­fectly illus­trates this trend, estab­lish­ing itself as a major growth driver for the region.

More than just an event, a business driver

Today, com­pan­ies are no longer just look­ing for ‘spec­tacle’. As Carine Fouquier, Man­aging Dir­ect­or of the CID, points out, expect­a­tions have shif­ted towards ‘busi­ness, know­ledge and net­work­ing’. Con­trary to post-Cov­id fears, face-to-face meet­ings are now more than ever con­sidered essen­tial for their rela­tion­al value and com­mer­cial impact.
€115 mil­lion in eco­nom­ic benefits

The impact of the CID’s activity on the region is massive.

For the year 2025, the total eco­nom­ic impact is estim­ated at £115 mil­lion. This fig­ure can be broken down into two categories:
• Dir­ect impact: This con­cerns the organ­isa­tion of the events them­selves (audi­ovisu­al, secur­ity, stand assembly, clean­ing), involving nearly 50 dif­fer­ent professions.
• Indir­ect bene­fits: The influx of vis­it­ors boosts the entire loc­al eco­nomy, par­tic­u­larly hotels, res­taur­ants, shops and transport.
The Amer­ic­an Film Fest­iv­al alone gen­er­ates €34.7 mil­lion in bene­fits and cre­ates or main­tains 558 jobs.

Performance above the national average

Des­pite 2025 being described as a ‘low point’ after an excep­tion­al 2024 marked by the Olympic Games, the fig­ures remain solid:
• 80 events organised.
• 106,000 vis­it­ors and con­fer­ence attendees welcomed.
• An occu­pancy rate of 55% (or 203 days), well above the nation­al aver­age for region­al con­fer­ence centres, which stands at 36%.
The activ­ity is mainly driv­en by the B2B sec­tor (sem­inars and con­fer­ences), which accounts for 80% of the activ­ity. The insur­ance-bank­ing (17%) and health­care (13%) sec­tors are par­tic­u­larly well represented.

2026: Focus on international expansion and scientific expertise

The year 2026 got off to a strong start with record attend­ance for the 33^rd Risk Man­age­ment Con­fer­ence (AMRAE), which brought togeth­er more than 4,000 par­ti­cipants in February.
The CID’s strategy now focuses on high-tech inter­na­tion­al events, the res­ult of long-term pro­spect­ing work. Two major sci­entif­ic events will mark the year:
1. IPAC (May 2026): A glob­al con­fer­ence on particle accel­er­at­ors bring­ing togeth­er 1,500 sci­ent­ists and engineers.
2. The PTCOG con­fer­ence (June 2026): A sum­mit on pro­ton ther­apy and can­cer treat­ment, attract­ing 1,200 glob­al experts.
By attract­ing the world’s research elite, Deau­ville is con­firm­ing its com­pet­it­ive­ness against cit­ies such as Mil­an and Mad­rid and estab­lish­ing its repu­ta­tion as a lead­ing des­tin­a­tion for the MICE.