Briefing a public official for Davos week: what the office needs before January

A public official's Davos week is a diplomatic operation and a commercial one at the same time, and the briefing has to serve both. Official accreditation to the Annual Meeting, where it exists, runs through the official's own government and the meeting's organisers, and is outside the scope of any concierge. Everything else, which is most of the week, is built the way any delegation builds it: an objective, a map of counterparts, a calendar of independently hosted rooms in Davos, and a staff plan. This is what the office needs ready before January.

It is written for chiefs of staff and advisers to ministers, governors, mayors and the heads of public agencies, including officials who travel outside an accredited national delegation.

What is and is not in scope

Start by separating two things that share the same dates. The official Annual Meeting is an invitation-only programme inside the Kongresszentrum, and accreditation to it is institutional, granted through membership and partnership or by invitation from the meeting's organisers. For an official, that accreditation comes, if it comes, through the official's government or by invitation from the meeting's organisers. No concierge arranges it, and The Davos Cabinet does not.

The independent week around the meeting is a different matter. Country and sector Houses on the Promenade, hotel-zone breakfasts and roundtables, investor dinners and receptions all run on the same dates, organised by participants rather than by the meeting's organisers, and country House programming often draws senior government officials alongside business and civil society delegations. This is the part of the week an office can plan for itself. For an official who is not part of an accredited national delegation, a regional minister, a mayor or the head of a state agency, it is most of the week, and the route in is the same as anyone else's: a Secure Hotel Badge, a central base and a calendar of the right rooms, as set out in how to attend Davos 2027 without official accreditation.

State the distinction plainly in the office's own planning documents, then move on. It shapes everything downstream: which meetings run through diplomatic channels and which through hosts and networks, and what the official can say about the week afterwards.

The objective and the mandate

An official's week needs one objective that can be said in a sentence in any room. Investment into a named sector or project. A policy position the official wants understood. A partnership with a city, a utility, a university or a fund. Everything on the calendar should serve that sentence, and anything that does not is a candidate to decline.

The mandate is the objective's boundary. Before January, the office should settle what the official may commit to in Davos and what needs approval at home, which announcements are cleared and which would pre-empt a domestic process, and which subjects are off limits whatever the setting. An official who knows where the mandate ends can speak freely up to that line. One who does not will either over-commit in a good conversation or say nothing of substance in all of them.

The mandate is the edge of the objective. Inside it, an official can be generous.

The counterpart map

The counterpart map replaces the target list an executive would build, and it works by category rather than by name: investors by asset class and region, companies in the sectors that matter to the objective, peer officials from other jurisdictions, multilateral and development institutions, and the media the office wants to reach.

For each category, the map records where those counterparts are likely to appear in the independent calendar. Country Houses for bilateral and investment conversations. Sector Houses for specialist audiences. Hotel-zone breakfasts and roundtables for focused discussion. The dinners for the relationships. The map is built over the autumn and sharpened in November, as the calendar firms up and invitations move; our guide to Davos side events explains how that calendar works and how invitation lists are built.

Requests for formal bilateral meetings with other governments run through the office's own diplomatic channels, not through a concierge. The map should mark which meetings are which, so that nothing falls between the two.

The talking points and the one-page position

The position paper for Davos is one page. It carries the objective in a sentence, three points that support it, the evidence for each, and the ask: what the official wants a counterpart to do, decide or consider. It is written to be read in two minutes before a meeting, not handed across the table.

From that page come the variations. A shorter version for dinners, where the official may have five minutes of a counterpart's attention between courses. A specific version for each priority meeting, built around the counterpart's own interests and recent public statements. And a set of prepared answers to the hard questions the official is likely to be asked, including the ones the office would rather not hear.

What to leave out matters as much. Domestic politics, figures that have not been published, commitments that have not been cleared, and anything the official would not want to read in a newspaper the following week.

Protocol, discretion and privacy

Much of the private side of Davos is off the record by convention: the seated dinners, the closed roundtables, the conversations in hotel lounges. The working rule for an official is to treat every room as if it could be reported, and to know in advance which events are on the record, such as panels and media-hosted sessions, and which are not.

Three practical points follow. Agree with the communications adviser what the official will say if asked about any meeting on the calendar. Decide in advance what the office will post publicly, and when, because hosts and other guests photograph their events and post them too. And check the office's own rules on accepting hospitality before the week, so that dinner invitations can be accepted or declined without improvisation.

Discretion applies to the calendar itself. An official's movements are sensitive, so the full calendar should be shared inside the delegation on a need-to-know basis, held by the lead and by the protection team where there is one.

Security, and who is responsible for it

The public security regime for the meeting belongs to the Swiss authorities. According to the Swiss federal government, the Graubünden Cantonal Police and its partners are responsible for security, the federal Parliament has approved a subsidiary army deployment of up to 5,000 personnel for 2025 to 2027, and the federal government orders special protective measures where needed for internationally protected persons, a category that includes heads of state and government, ministers and senior representatives of international organisations. The cantonal police also decree the security zones around the Congress Centre and a small number of hotels and sites, which only people with appropriate documentation may enter, as the 2026 security-zone order shows.

Anything beyond that public regime is the office's own arrangement: a protection detail where the official has one, which is a matter for the official's government and the Swiss authorities. The Davos Cabinet coordinates the logistics of the week around those arrangements, the calendar, the movement and the accommodation. It does not replace them.

Credentials for the office's staff

Staff and advisers travelling with the official need their own credentials. Where the official holds official accreditation and the staff do not, each adviser who must follow the official into the secured-zone hotels needs a Secure Hotel Badge. The badge is issued by the Swiss authorities after a police background verification, the application runs to autumn deadlines, and each application depends on a hotel reservation in the applicant's own name, matching the identification document exactly. The details, and the pitfalls that delay applications, are in the Davos Hotel Badge, explained.

For an office, the practical risk is a late decision about who travels. A name added in December is a name that may not be badged in time.

The staff plan: who travels and who stays

The staff plan answers three questions. Who travels: usually the official, a chief of staff or principal adviser, a communications adviser and protection where it applies, with a policy or sector specialist for the meetings that need one. Who stays: the office at home, which has to keep running for a week without its principal and across a time difference, with a duty officer who can make decisions and a clear line of approval for any statement issued in the official's name. And who answers the phone: a single contact list for the week, held by the lead, with the people at home who can be reached at whatever hour Davos keeps.

The office at home is often where a Davos week goes wrong. Statements that need clearance stall in the time difference, opportunities that open on a Wednesday wait for an answer on a Friday, and follow-ups that should go out the week after go out a month after. A named person at home, briefed on the objective and the calendar, prevents most of that.

The timeline from autumn to January

Working back from the meeting, which in 2027 runs Monday 18 to Friday 22 January:

• Spring and summer: the decision to go, the objective, and accommodation, which is the scarcest resource in the town and goes early.
• Early autumn: the travelling party fixed, Secure Hotel Badge applications submitted with the hotel reservations they depend on, and any visas applied for as early as the rules allow.
• October and November: the counterpart map built, requests for meetings made, and the independent calendar settled as invitations move. The dinners worth attending are quietly settled by November.
• December: the position paper and talking points cleared, the briefing book drafted, and the staff plan confirmed.
• January: arrival over the weekend before the meeting, badge collection, the week itself, and the debrief.

An office that starts in December can still attend. It cannot plan.

How The Davos Cabinet works with an official's office

We work alongside the office rather than in place of it. Official accreditation, diplomatic requests and protection remain with the office and its government. What we provide is the independent week around them: invitations to events in our independent programme, including the dinners hosted within our programme, which draw senior leaders from government and business; introductions within our network where they serve the objective; briefing notes on the rooms the official will attend; daily coordination with the chief of staff during the week; and accommodation and transport as add-ons. We describe the rooms by the people they tend to draw, and never promise who will attend.

The Secure Hotel Badge for the official's staff is handled end to end: the application, the police verification paperwork, collection in person with a passport at the official pickup point in Davos, and help on the ground through the week. Everything we host is organised independently by The Davos Cabinet. It is not part of the official Annual Meeting programme and does not include access to the official meeting, its sessions or its delegates. The structure of our engagements is set out across our tiers, and our page for corporates describes how we coordinate a multi-person delegation.

Common questions

The questions chiefs of staff and advisers ask us most often about preparing an official for Davos week. Full responses sit in the accordion below.

Begin your conversation

An official's Davos week is decided in the months before January, and the office that starts in the spring has the widest choice of rooms. The conversation begins by application.

For the team mechanics behind an official's week, read running a delegation in Davos week, and for the access picture, how to attend Davos 2027 without official accreditation.

Frequently asked questions

1. 01Can a regional or municipal official attend Davos week?↓

   Yes. Official accreditation to the Annual Meeting is institutional and runs through government channels and the meeting's organisers, but the wider week around it is open to officials at every level. A regional or municipal official typically builds the week from a Secure Hotel Badge, the country and sector Houses, and the independently hosted breakfasts, roundtables and dinners.

2. 02Does a public official need official accreditation for Davos?↓

   Only to attend the official Annual Meeting inside the Kongresszentrum, and that accreditation comes through the official's government and the meeting's organisers. For the independent week around it, a Secure Hotel Badge, issued by the Swiss authorities after a police verification, admits the holder to the secured-zone hotels and the events hosted inside them.

3. 03What should a Davos briefing for an official include?↓

   The objective in one sentence, the mandate and its limits, a map of counterparts by category, a one-page position with three points and an ask, the calendar with the purpose of each room, notes on what is on and off the record, and the logistics: credentials, transport, contacts and the staff plan at home.

4. 04Who handles the official's security in Davos?↓

   The Swiss authorities run the public security regime: the Graubünden Cantonal Police lead it with partners, the army supports it, and the federal government orders special measures for internationally protected persons. Protection beyond that is the office's own arrangement. The Davos Cabinet coordinates the logistics of the week around those arrangements, not the protection itself.

The Davos Cabinet is not affiliated with nor endorsed by the World Economic Forum.