Watches & Wonders Geneva will be held in Geneva, Switzerland from April 14th to 20th, 2026. Masayuki Hirota, editor-in-chief of the watch magazine "Chronos Japan," has been updating the "Geneva Diary" every year despite his exhaustion, but this year, Chieko Tsuruoka from the editorial department, who is covering the event on-site for the first time, has taken over. She will share the atmosphere of the new product trade fair along with her challenging yet enjoyable (really?) days in Geneva.
Text by Chieko Tsuruoka (Chronos-Japan)
[Article published on January 16, 2025]
"Geneva Diary" begins now!
The Japanese edition of the watch magazine "Chronos" annually covers Watches & Wonders Geneva, the largest new watch trade fair in the industry, and features it in its July issue. However, in 2026, "webChronos" also decided to cover the event on-site, and editor Chieko Tsuruoka traveled to Switzerland. This year's event runs from April 14th to 20th.
During this new product trade fair, editor-in-chief Masayuki Hirota has been updating a rambling journal called "Geneva Diary." This year, Tsuruoka will be taking over this task.
I'll leave the remaining work to myself on the plane and depart!
I learned about the existence of the watch industry's new product trade fair at Baselworld in 2017, and I have longed to attend ever since. Two and a half years after joining the editorial department of Chronos Japan, I finally had the opportunity to cover this trade fair. I was frantically trying to finish up work for my week-long absence right up until my departure, but it was nowhere near finished, so I made the unreliable decision to "just do my best on the plane" and headed to Switzerland.
The airline for this flight was China Eastern Airlines. We were heading to Geneva via Shanghai Pudong International Airport. During the short 3-hour flight to Shanghai, we were served fried noodles with dessert, which was so delicious it was addictive. However, the seats were quite hard, and although it was fine until Shanghai, my butt split into four pieces on the Shanghai-Geneva leg (imitating Hirota).
Nevertheless, I arrived in Geneva earlier than I would have if I had taken the southern route, and successfully passed through immigration on the morning of the 13th, Swiss time. Incidentally, it seems I was on the same plane as journalist Yasuhito Shibuya, and we met in the immigration line. Mr. Shibuya is a veteran journalist who has been covering Switzerland since the 1990s. He kindly told me about convenient Lake Geneva tour tickets and apps from SBB (Swiss Federal Railways), as well as the existence of a press lounge at the Watches & Wonders Geneva venue with reliable Wi-Fi. When I thanked him by email, he replied, "It's only natural for an older person to do so."
I parted ways with Mr. Shibuya, firmly resolved that I could never sleep with my feet pointing towards him, and although my hotel was in Anne-Mas, France, I wanted to explore Geneva, so I left my luggage in a coin locker (it's completely cashless, so it's not really "coin-operated") and headed to Cornavin, the central station. To reiterate, this was the first step in my long-awaited coverage of Watches & Wonders Geneva. Little did I know when I stepped out in high spirits—that this would be the most energetic and vibrant moment of the week.
Regarding the title
Two years ago, when Hirota started his "Geneva Diary," he titled it "10,000 Yen 50 Swiss Francs" (article URL:https://www.webchronos.net/features/112719/). This time, when I exchanged 1 yen in Geneva, I received 42 Swiss francs... The exchange rate was bad.
Live streaming from Geneva while having a runny nose
I was surprised by how cold it was when I got off the train in Cornavin. The temperature that day, April 13th, was 9℃. It was also raining lightly. Coming from hot Tokyo, I was dressed far too lightly, and I felt my spirits waning at that moment, but I had decided long ago that I would shoot a video at the Mont Blanc Bridge when I arrived, so I persevered and headed there.
Of course, I didn't have an umbrella, so while I was looking for a good shooting location, my hair got wet, my eyebrows disappeared, and my nose started running... I was completely disheartened, but I managed to finish the shoot and had lunch and did some editing at a Starbucks near Cornavin station.
It was past noon at this point, and I was excited about the possibility of buying an umbrella and strolling around Geneva if I could upload it early, or perhaps exploring Annemas... but since it was a video, the data was really heavy, and the editing and uploading process ended up taking four hours (I ordered an extra coffee), and I was completely exhausted by the time I finished.
I finally managed to check into the hotel after 18 PM, and didn't have the energy to go for a walk. So I bought a beer at a nearby shop and a burger at McDonald's for dinner, and went to sleep early.
