On Thursday 8 and Friday 9 May, THEPLANNER.be travelled under the guidance of the Switzerland Convention & Incentive Bureau to Lausanne, Switzerland, the capital of the Canton of Vaud, for an introductory visit with five Belgian companies. Lausanne, hometown of the International Olympic Committee, is a 40-minute drive from Geneva Airport, accessible by direct flights from Brussels. This easy accessibility is already one reason to opt for Lausanne. But we will be happy to lay another six on the table…

Enjoy a university town that bathes in culture and history

By Swiss standards, Lausanne is a mid-sized city with some 130,000 inhabitants. The city is built on three hills and Lake Léman (Lake Geneva) lies at its feet – making Lausanne particularly attractive. The old centre city is largely car-free and you can enjoy the attractive parks, pleasant streets, impressive buildings, palatial hotels and the liveliness of this university town. Towering above all this loveliness is the Cathedral of Notre Dame of Lausanne, a piece of history in Gothic style, the construction of which began in the 12th century. This cathedral can boast of having one of the most expensive church organs in the world, with more than 7,000 pipes. During the Middle Ages, it was a magnet for pilgrims that travelled there to pray for the 'Golden Virgin'. At the time, the cathedral served as the proud watchtower for keeping guard over the city, warning of fires and identifying enemies. Still today there is a night watchman that guards Lausanne, from 10 in the evening until 2 a.m. You can even pay him a visit in his room in the top part of the cathedral in the context of a business event. Precisely when the hour strikes, he calls out from his high perch: "C'est le guet, il a sonné l'heure" ("This is the nightwatch, the hour has struck."). It is a slice of unique history from more than 500 years ago that continues on today...

Bicycle tours through the rolling vineyards

When you are at the top of the cathedral, you will have a beautiful view of the vineyards that stretch out around Lausanne. A quarter of all Swiss wine is produced in the Vaud and many of the vineyards – which mainly produce white Chasselas – lie on the shores of the lake. The most famous wine region is Lavaux, to the East of Lausanne. This region is in fact listed as a UNESCO World Heritage site and is protected against urban development. According to the local population, the sun here shines three times on the grapes: one time directly, one time via reflection in the water, and one time from the cliffs that heat up during the day and then release their warmth at night. A bicycle tour through the vineyards and tastings of the local vintage are highly recommended for groups. - >

Dining on board a Belle Époque boat on Lake Léman

Lake Léman is the largest lake in Europe. It is the ideal place to go sailing, water-skiing or canoeing with a group. Also recommended: a tour on board a Belle Époque boat and calmly sailing from Lausanne to the harbour of Ouchy. Or you can combine this with a dinner on board. You have a choice of 8 boats with names such as La Suisse, Savoie, Simplon or Rhône. The boats have a capacity of 150 to 278 persons in banquet style.

Hold an original meeting in the Olympic Museum

Lausanne, which has held the title of Olympic capital since 1994, is home base to more than forty sporting organizations and federations. Here you will also find the Olympic Museum, which again opened its doors in April 2014 after a thorough renovation. The museum itself (one of thirty museums in Lausanne) offers a lovely, permanent and interactive exhibition about sports, the Olympic Games and the Olympic ideals. More than 10,000 items associated with the Games are on display. You can organize gala dinners against this backdrop for up to 250 persons or hold meetings in the auditorium that has a capacity of up to 170 persons. There is also an extra hall in the museum that offers space for approximately 50 people in an auditorium setting. Good to know: after closing time – thus, after 6 p.m. – you can exclusively rent the building with your company for meetings, dinners or business events.

Sleeping under five stars

Lausanne has unique and historical hotels that can serve as the ideal setting for residential seminars. The Lausanne Palace is one of them. The hotel was built in Belle Époque style and opened its doors on 19 June 1915. Lausanne Palace has 147 rooms and suites with an unsurpassed view of the lake. In addition, there are also four restaurants (one of which with a Michelin star) and conference rooms for up to 300 persons. If you are with a small group, then you definitely must head down to the cellar, where some 20,000 bottles of wine from all over the world are resting. The ideal place for a delicious tasting!

Another star in the hotel firmament in Lausanne is Beau-Rivage Palace – an incredibly beautiful hotel that exudes 150 years of elegant history and is surrounded by lovely gardens. This hotel, with 134 rooms and suites, has a long tradition of hospitality and is one of the 'Leading Hotels of the World'. There is no lack of conference rooms in the Beau-Rivage Palace: the hotel has 14 halls, the largest of which has a capacity of 400 persons in an auditorium format. 'Gourmands' will also find the Beau-Rivage Palace to their liking: there are four restaurants, including a gastronomic temple from Anne-Sophie Pic that may be proud of its two Michelin stars.
In addition to an offering of five star hotels, Lausanne also has an extensive selection of four and three star hotels. In this way, this destination can offer a suitable and stylish solution according to everyone's budget.

High-level conferences in the SwissTech Convention Centre

The SwissTech Convention Centre, with its futuristic design, is a unique conference centre in Europe. The building is 100% modular and can be fully adapted to meet the needs of demanding conference organizers. The auditorium with mezzanine has a total surface of 2,700 m2: there is space for 2,206 conference attendees in the auditorium and 794 on the mezzanine. The auditorium is completely modular and can be converted into a conference auditorium, an exposition space or a banquet hall…in less than 15 minutes! To do so, the chairs in the hall disappear into a space underneath the floor by means of an ingenious system. The mezzanine itself can also be converted according to your wishes by means of modular walls. On the lower floor of the building there is also around 1,500m2 of space for 15 breakout rooms, which can also be constructed according to your wishes.

It is not only the modular aspect that makes the SwissTech Convention Center so unique. This convention centre, situated on the campus of the prestigious Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL), also stands for sustainability. The energy concept of the building is unique: water from Lake Léman is used for the heating; there is a 15,000m2 installation of photovoltaic panels on the roof for electricity production; and on the Western side of the convention centre, unique, coloured photovoltaic cells are installed in front of the windows. They have a combined capacity of 2,000 kWh per year. Furthermore, geothermal heat is also generated via four mega-pillars that descend 30 metres deep into the ground. A top location for sustainable conferences!

The SwissTech Convention Centre, in which all the spaces are awash in daylight, is perfectly accessible from the centre of Lausanne. It will therefore undoubtedly become a magnet for numerous conferences from Switzerland and abroad.