What is Davos? Your guide to the World Economic Forum’s Annual Meeting

What do Bono, Donald Trump, Nelson Mandela and Greta Thunberg all have in common?

Not much, except that they’ve all been to Davos, Switzerland. Each January, famous – and infamous – global influencers from many different spheres rub shoulders with CEOs in the snowy Alpine town.

Since 1971, the World Economic Forum’s Annual Meeting in Davos has kicked off the year with a discussion on the challenges facing the world. But who gets to go? Who runs the invite list? And what’s the point of the whole Davos gathering?

Read on to find the answers in our ultimate Davos cheat sheet.

Who goes to Davos?

Davos attendees include leaders from business, governments, civil society, faith groups, academia and the arts – as well as the global media. At Davos 2024, there will be over 100 governments, all major international organizations and 1,000 of the most important global companies represented. They come together in a glammed-up conference hall to take part in a week of meetings about everything from climate change to cryptocurrencies.

Around 2,000 to 3,000 people are on the official invite list, though many more flock to fringe events, swelling the population of the resort town from its modest permanent base of around 11,000.

Others warm up with a hot drink at the café in the Zurich House. As a strategic partner of the World Economic Forum, Zurich Insurance Group sends a small group of executives to Davos every year. And when not in a session, they can be found in their temporary Davos home.

Who’s running the show at Davos?

Arranging everything from the program to the plant-based canapés is the World Economic Forum, which is not in fact based in German-speaking Davos, but on the other side of Switzerland in Geneva. The Forum is one of many international organizations in the French-speaking city, from the World Trade Organization to the International Committee of the Red Cross.

Beyond Davos, Forum staff work year-round on projects including the Global Gender Gap report, which quantifies the obstacles women face around the world.

Why go to Davos?

The World Economic Forum was founded on the principle of “multistakeholder theory.” That’s an arcane term for the idea that businesses don’t operate in isolation and should serve all stakeholders – not just its shareholders – such as employees, suppliers and the communities they work in. This aligns with Zurich’s purpose and values and with the work the Z Zurich Foundation, a charitable foundation established by members of the Zurich Insurance Group.

The stakeholder approach means that Davos is one of the rare places where you will see leaders of global businesses discussing everything from AI to inequality with union leaders, climate change activists, policymakers and academics. There’s a spirit of dialogue that can broaden perspectives and even bring traditional adversaries together. It is also indisputably an efficient venue for networking, in a beautiful – if remote – setting.

What’s on the 2024 agenda at Davos?

Davos 2024 will be the 54th Annual Meeting and will run from January 15-19. This year the focus will be on exploring the opportunities enabled by new technologies and their implications on decision-making and global partnerships.

Ahead of Davos, the publication of the Forum’s Global Risks Report, in collaboration with Zurich, sets the scene for the meeting by probing the major threats on the horizon

With 2024 being a year of key global elections – including India, the UK, the EU, South Africa and the U.S. presidential election in November – you can expect to hear concerns about these elections being influenced by AI-generated disinformation. With the ability to mass produce false messaging and create fake images and videos, there are worries that AI could erode democracy.

What has Davos ever done for the world?

As a gathering of the global elite, Davos has often been a lightning rod for protests about everything from the rapid globalization of the 1990s to the runaway climate change of this century.

The event can point its critics toward some solid achievements, however. As a peace broker, Davos helped to avert war between Greece and Turkey with the signing of the Davos Declaration in 1988. It was also in Davos that Gavi, the vaccine alliance, was launched in 2000. Gavi now helps to vaccinate nearly half the world’s children from deadly diseases and plays a key role in delivering COVID-19 vaccines to vulnerable countries.

Why is it in Davos, anyway?

At an altitude of 1,560 meters, with ice-slicked streets and a long train ride to the nearest airport, Davos is not the most obvious location for a major international conference. The founder of the World Economic Forum, Professor Klaus Schwab, originally chose Davos as a peaceful place to get perspective away from the daily challenges of running a business. The quiet valley is known as a retreat from the world, as captured in the German writer Thomas Mann’s account of life in a Davos tuberculosis sanatorium, The Magic Mountain.

These days, what magic there is can be captured and shared on social media. Tickets to the event may be hard to come by, but anyone curious can tune into the event’s substantial livestream program.

Photo credits
Main image of Davos: World Economic Forum / Mattias Nutt
Photo of Greta Thunberg: World Economic Forum / Manuel Lopez