Basic information

1. Character of the Conference
Annual summit of industry leaders in the Czech retail market, with the tradition since 1994 (in the beginning under the brand Conference on Trade Development in CR). The summit is organised by Confederation of commerce and tourism in CR, Faculty of international relations of University of Economics in Prague and company Blue Events. During its long history the conference has become a platform for meeting the key actors in the CEE retail market. It is aimed to provide not only information about the latest development trends but also inspiration for the further growth of their businesses. After the Czech Republic was integrated to European Union, an international character of the conference is being strengthened – share of foreign delegates, namely from the neighbouring countries, has increased.

2. Participants
In the early years of the summitu existence there were usually about 500 participants registered, recently number of delegates has always exceeded 750, the record paticipation being nearly 1000 delegates in 2005. Their structure is composed of top managers or owners of retail companies (eg. Ahold, Makro, Tesco, Globus, Rewe, Spar, etc.), suppliers of consumer goods, technologies, financial and consulting services, representatives of state authorities (each year relevant ministers of the Czech government take part). Since EU enlargement including the Czech Republic, the conference program has exceeded the national scale and became attractive not only for managers of the companies active in the Czech or Slovak republics but also for the guests from other CEE countries. The conference is regularly opened by the General secretary of EuroCommerce seated in Brussels, and also members of European parliament or representatives of European commission are usually invited.

3. The basic structure of the program
Retail Summit has a format of 2 days conference. Focus of the first conference day lays in the plenary session divided into 2 blocks, followed by the afternoon panel discussion. Key-note speakers are usually managers of leading retail companies from CEE Europe, experts bringing information on the state of retailing sector and introducing new trend-setting issues. The first day is crowned with the Gala dinner, rich in professional, social and cultural program.

The second conference day is dedicated to workshops – usually 4 parallel discussion sessions in 2 blocks , each of them lasting 2 hours. The topics of the workshops try to point out the hottest issues of each year. Usually there are sessions specialised in food and non-food retailing, specifics of retail business in individual CEE countries, shopper marketing, retail development, HR management, etc.

Program of individual years is prepared by organisational committee at present composed of:
Ing. Zdeněk Juračka, President SOCR ČR
Dr. Barbora Krásná, Partner, Blue Events
Doc. Dana Zadražilová, Dean, FMV VŠE

4. Conference language
The basic conference languages are Czech and English. The whole program of the first day and most discussion session of the second day are simultaneously translated to / from English. Depending on share of foreign visitors, German and Russian translation are sometimes also included.

5. Conference organization: The Retail Summit is organised by Blue Events company.
Conference secretariat is seated at:
Blue Events
Secretariat of the Retail Summit
Hlubočepská 38c
152 00 Praha 5
Tel: 222 749 841
Fax: 222 749 840
e-mail: info@BlueEvents.eu