Organising a Large-Scale Conference: Choose Deauville, an Exceptional and Highly Accessible Venue, Contrary to Many Misconceptions

For more than a quarter of a cen­tury, infec­tious dis­ease spe­cial­ists have gathered annu­ally for the “JNI” (Journées Nationales d’Infectiologie – French Nation­al Infec­tious Dis­eases Con­fer­ence), a con­gress that also brings togeth­er col­leagues from oth­er dis­cip­lines closely involved in man­aging infec­tious risks, as well as para­med­ic­al professionals.

Although the JNI are held in a dif­fer­ent loc­a­tion each year, Nor­mandy remained the only region of France that had nev­er hos­ted the event, as the con­ven­tion centres in the two cit­ies with uni­ver­sity hos­pit­als – Caen and Rouen – do not have suf­fi­cient capa­city for a thou­sand or more delegates.

This situ­ation was clearly det­ri­ment­al to the region, since the event provides an oppor­tun­ity to show­case loc­al teams – which can make a sig­ni­fic­ant con­tri­bu­tion to the pro­gramme – while also enabling par­ti­cipants to dis­cov­er a new part of the coun­try, as rel­at­ively few French people are truly famil­i­ar with every corner of France.

Well known to Normandy’s med­ic­al teams, which reg­u­larly organ­ise their region­al con­fer­ences there, the Centre Inter­na­tion­al de Deau­ville (CID) was the obvi­ous solu­tion for them. How­ever, in order to secure the sup­port of all the decision-makers, a num­ber of poten­tially obstruct­ive mis­con­cep­tions first had to be addressed one by one before the Deau­ville JNI could finally become a real­ity – and ulti­mately prove a great success.

Hence this shar­ing of exper­i­ence, without the slight­est con­flict of interest, oth­er than our attach­ment to our region and our con­vic­tion that it deserves to become bet­ter known through many oth­er nation­al or European con­fer­ences, par­tic­u­larly in the health­care sector.

“Deauville is all glitz and glamour, and no corporate partner will agree to support us there” — FALSE

Faced with this deeply rooted con­cern, which had per­sisted for years, the French Med­ic­al Coun­cil (Con­seil de l’Ordre des Méde­cins) had been con­sul­ted before­hand. It con­cluded that there was no objec­tion in prin­ciple, provided that the usu­al rules were scru­pu­lously observed, just as they would be any­where else – which proved easy to achieve.

Thus reas­sured, all poten­tial part­ners – phar­ma­ceut­ic­al and micro­bi­o­lo­gic­al dia­gnost­ic com­pan­ies, as well as health­care ser­vice pro­viders – atten­ded in great­er num­bers than ever before in the his­tory of the JNI, without encoun­ter­ing the slight­est reg­u­lat­ory or oth­er dif­fi­culty. On the con­trary, they offered con­sid­er­able praise dur­ing the post-event debriefing.

“Deauville is full of luxury hotels and offers far too little affordable accommodation for conference delegates” — FALSE

This corol­lary of the pre­vi­ous mis­con­cep­tion proved to be untrue when put to the test, even though the JNI took place in June, an espe­cially attract­ive peri­od for tourism.

Of course, Deau­ville has some mag­ni­fi­cent, inter­na­tion­ally renowned hotels whose high-end stand­ards (four or five stars) place them bey­ond the reach of pro­fes­sion­al events for health­care work­ers, includ­ing for reg­u­lat­ory reas­ons. But along­side them, the range of two- and three-star hotels and res­id­ences in Deau­ville and the imme­di­ate sur­round­ing area has expan­ded con­sid­er­ably. Many par­ti­cipants also found oth­er solu­tions, much to their delight: a large, com­fort­able villa shared by a team, ulti­mately cost­ing each indi­vidu­al less than a hotel; or a very com­fort­able bun­ga­low at a nearby beach camp­site, par­tic­u­larly pop­u­lar with young­er attendees, some of whom stayed on for a week­end “beach party” or for a triath­lon tak­ing place imme­di­ately afterwards…

“There isn’t much to do in this small town, which will put some participants off” — FALSE

With more than 2,000 par­ti­cipants for the first time in the his­tory of the con­fer­ence, the Deau­ville JNI “broke all records”, demon­strat­ing the appeal not only of the sci­entif­ic con­tent but also of the town itself.

Deau­ville is obvi­ously about much more than the cluster of lux­ury boutiques next to its pres­ti­gi­ous hotels; it also offers numer­ous simple, nature-based activ­it­ies. The town is also a gate­way to a par­tic­u­larly beau­ti­ful region: in the heart of the Pays d’Auge, so vividly por­trayed by Dav­id Hock­ney; with Hon­fleur and its legendary old har­bour a little fur­ther away; fol­lowed by the D‑Day land­ing beaches and their power­ful his­tor­ic­al leg­acy; Rouen, a city that is itself a museum; and the breath­tak­ing Mont-Saint-Michel, spec­tac­u­lar in every season…

“Deauville is difficult to get to” — FALSE

In highly cent­ral­ised France, where not only res­id­ents of the Par­is region but also people from many oth­er parts of the coun­try often have to travel via Par­is to get from one place to anoth­er, Deau­ville is actu­ally quite easy to reach. It has a dir­ect rail con­nec­tion from Par­is Saint-Laz­are, unbeat­able in terms of car­bon foot­print, with the pos­sib­il­ity of arran­ging spe­cial trains that could even be chartered by a sponsor.

Once there, most par­ti­cipants can do everything on foot – includ­ing, of course, strolling along Deauville’s fam­ous board­walk, which not­ably provides access to the CID.

“The CID is great for the American Film Festival, but not for a scientific conference” — FALSE

Like so many oth­er con­fer­ences, par­tic­u­larly med­ic­al ones, the JNI com­bine plen­ary ses­sions – some­times with a single ses­sion for all par­ti­cipants – with oth­er peri­ods dur­ing which sev­en ses­sions run con­cur­rently in order to meet everyone’s neces­sar­ily dif­fer­ent pri­or­it­ies for updat­ing their knowledge.

Com­pared with many oth­er region­al con­ven­tion centres, the CID offers exem­plary func­tion­al­ity for this pur­pose. Along­side the main aud­it­or­i­um, home to the film fest­iv­al and per­fectly suited to gen­er­al assem­blies, the CID makes it pos­sible to cre­ate mod­u­lar spaces of all sizes. The JNI did not even use half of the avail­able space, des­pite provid­ing extens­ive areas for poster present­a­tions, exhib­i­tion stands, cater­ing and networking…

“A conference in Deauville costs a fortune” — FALSE

The CID is cer­tainly not the least expens­ive region­al con­ven­tion centre, but in our exper­i­ence, when tak­ing into account Deauville’s strong appeal to both del­eg­ates and spon­sors, togeth­er with the will­ing­ness of the centre’s man­age­ment – fully aware that it was in everyone’s interest to find com­mon ground and make the event hap­pen – the over­all res­ult proved highly sat­is­fact­ory com­pared with many oth­er cities.

As for the “gala even­ing”, a high­light of the JNI social pro­gramme and paid for entirely by each par­ti­cipant, it was held at a very reas­on­able cost in a sea­side villa not far from the CID, with excel­lent cater­ing and a polo demon­stra­tion right out­side on the beach. The entire exper­i­ence left par­tic­u­larly mem­or­able impres­sions pre­cisely because it was unique in the his­tory of the conference.

Of course, depend­ing on your needs and your audi­ence, oth­er towns and cit­ies in Nor­mandy offer excel­lent oppor­tun­it­ies for gath­er­ings of vary­ing sizes. But above all, do not over­look Deau­ville when con­sid­er­ing your options, par­tic­u­larly for a major conference.

Prof. François CARON
Infec­tious Dis­ease Spe­cial­ist at Rouen Uni­ver­sity Hos­pit­al and the Uni­ver­sity of Rouen
Chair­man of the Region­al Organ­ising Com­mit­tee for the Deau­ville JNI