ILTM Cannes 2026

For four days every early December, Cannes becomes the working capital of the global luxury travel industry. ILTM — the International Luxury Travel Market, run by RX (Reed Exhibitions) and the world’s #1 luxury travel trade event — brings around 10,000 attendees from 112 countries through the Palais des Festivals: the world’s leading luxury hotel groups (Four Seasons, Aman, Mandarin Oriental, Belmond, Rosewood, Six Senses, Four Seasons, Auberge), the headline DMCs and tour operators (Abercrombie & Kent, Black Tomato, Scott Dunn, TCS World Travel), private aviation (NetJets, VistaJet, Flexjet), the luxury cruise lines (Silversea, Seabourn, Regent, Crystal, Explora), and the wider luxury hospitality supplier base. 1,650 hand-selected hosted buyers from 75 countries — the world’s top luxury travel advisors and agencies, vetted on their HNW client portfolios — meet 2,350+ exhibiting brands across 85,000+ pre-scheduled 15-minute meetings.

The 2026 edition runs Monday 30 November – Thursday 3 December 2026 (RX confirms exact dates each year). The official exhibition takes place inside the Palais des Festivals on the Croisette — the same building used for Cannes Film Festival in May, Cannes Lions in June, MIPIM in March, MIPCOM in October, MAPIC in November, and TFWA in late September. What makes ILTM distinctive is its rhythm: the pre-scheduled appointment system locks each hosted buyer into back-to-back 15-minute meetings from 09:00 to 18:00 across the four days. The yacht-hospitality programme on the Bay of Cannes therefore concentrates on evenings — hosted-buyer dinners, supplier hosted receptions, year-end industry gatherings, the after-hours relationship building that the conference-floor schedule can’t accommodate.

The page below is built around how a charter client should actually approach the week: whether to charter a yacht as your supplier-hosted-buyer hospitality venue (the dominant use case — an exhibiting brand hosting its target hosted-buyer relationships across four evenings) or as your executive team’s base for the week’s parallel meetings and partner-handover dinners. Early December on the Riviera is the closing edge of the European charter year — many superyachts have already departed for the transatlantic crossing to the Caribbean season, the Croisette is in pre-Christmas mode, daytime highs run mid-teens, and the yacht-charter brief is fundamentally about indoor hosting and on-deck evening receptions rather than swimming and beach-club logistics.

The first reason luxury-travel suppliers book yachts at ILTM is the most direct one: the hosted-buyer programme is the entire reason this audience is in Cannes. ILTM’s 1,650 hosted buyers are not casual delegates — they are vetted on HNW client portfolios and proven international luxury booking history. Each one is locked into 30+ pre-scheduled 15-minute appointments through the working day, and their evenings are open. For luxury hotel groups, DMCs, cruise lines, private-aviation operators, and yacht-charter brokerages, the yacht-hosted hosted-buyer dinner is the single highest-conversion hospitality moment in the luxury travel year. A 30-metre superyacht on Vieux Port hosting 12–18 hand-picked hosted buyers across four evenings is structurally how Boatcrowd’s own peer suppliers convert ILTM week into pipeline.

The second reason is Cannes capacity. The Croisette hotels — the Carlton, the Martinez, the Majestic, the Grand Hôtel, the Five Seas — are open year-round and ILTM week does drive a meaningful but not extreme premium (well below the Lions / Film Festival / Monaco GP peaks). For exhibitor teams of any meaningful size running hosted-buyer hospitality, a yacht charter delivers four-to-twelve cabins plus dedicated reception, dining and meeting space in a single venue — with a controllable guest list, branded hospitality programming, and on-board catering by the yacht chef rather than the hotel banqueting kitchen.

The third reason is what the yacht delivers as a year-end hospitality venue. The main saloon is your private reception room — controllable, brandable, and operating to your timetable. The upper deck is your aperitif and short-presentation venue. The dining saloon seats your top tier of hosted buyers in a single hosted dinner per evening. For luxury suppliers, this is exactly the format the ILTM hosted-buyer relationship requires: small, intimate, repeat across the week, and away from the Croisette’s noisier hotel-bar circuit.

The fourth reason is the year-end Riviera context. Early December marks the close of the European charter season — many superyachts have already departed for the transatlantic crossing to the Caribbean winter season (the headline Caribbean charter calendar runs from December through April, opening with the Antigua Charter Yacht Show, then the Christmas-and-NYE programme at St Barths). For yachts still in the Mediterranean across ILTM week, the rates are at their softest of the year and the schedule is the lightest. The same yacht can be booked across ILTM + a transatlantic delivery to the Caribbean for a Christmas-NYE client charter — or used just for the four ILTM evenings before going into winter refit at La Ciotat or Genoa.

ILTM sits at the closing edge of the European yacht-charter season — many Riviera superyachts have already begun the transatlantic delivery to the Caribbean by early December, and the remaining Mediterranean fleet is concentrated around the year-round professional charter yachts and the smaller post-refit Riviera fleet. The booking window is therefore tighter than the summer event weeks; the headline yachts in the Vieux Port row need committing well ahead.

Practical booking timeline for the 2026 ILTM Cannes week:

• Nine to twelve months out (Feb–May 2026): The window in which the major luxury hotel groups, DMCs, cruise lines, private-aviation operators, and the established yacht-charter brokerages commit the headline yachts — typically 25–45 metre motor yachts with the saloon, dining and deck capacity to host 12–25 hosted buyers across four evenings. Boatcrowd’s pre-ILTM inventory in this segment is typically committed by the previous late spring.
• Six to nine months out (May–August 2026): The window for the mid-tier yachts — 20–30 metres, the right size for a smaller supplier team hosting 8–14 hosted buyers per evening, or a senior delegation using the yacht as accommodation plus working dinner venue. Vieux Port and Port Canto ILTM-week berths are typically locked in by this stage.
• Three to six months out (August–November 2026): Last realistic window for the headline yachts; pricing firms up. Remaining inventory tends to be smaller motor yachts and overflow from cancellations as suppliers finalise ILTM hosting plans.
• Inside three months: Tighter than the equivalent autumn weeks but still workable for smaller charters. The Bay of Cannes anchorage off the Croisette is free and unrestricted; the yacht itself is the harder commitment, and the active winter Riviera fleet is at its smallest.

The Bay of Cannes has the deepest concentration of yacht infrastructure on the French Riviera after Antibes. The two Croisette ports sit inside the ILTM conference footprint itself; everything else is a short cruise. Anchoring in the Bay of Cannes off the Croisette is free and unrestricted across the year, including ILTM week, which gives a yacht-based hospitality programme considerably more flexibility than the equivalent hotel-banqueting alternative.

Vieux Port (Cannes Old Port) — the working-yacht row

The original Cannes harbour and the natural location for the headline ILTM-hosting yachts. Vieux Port sits a five-minute walk from the Palais des Festivals — close enough that hosted buyers stepping out of an exhibition-hall appointment can be on the yacht within minutes for an aperitif or hosted dinner. The yachts moor stern-to along the quays at Quai Saint-Pierre and Quai Laubeuf. Inside-port berths during ILTM week are the most valuable hospitality positions on the Croisette — the major luxury hotel groups, DMCs, and travel-tech platforms commit these nine-to-twelve months ahead. Vieux Port handles yachts up to roughly 70 metres alongside on the outer quays.

Port Pierre Canto — superyacht segment

The newer marina at the eastern end of La Croisette, a fifteen-minute walk from Vieux Port and the Palais. Port Canto handles motor yachts to 95 metres on its outer pontoons. The eastern Croisette location is slightly further from the Palais but well-positioned for the headline hotels at the eastern end of La Croisette (Carlton, Martinez, Majestic) where many of the ILTM exhibitor and hosted-buyer delegations base.

Anchorage — Bay of Cannes / off La Croisette

The standard cost-efficient option during ILTM. Anchor in the Bay of Cannes off the Croisette (depths 8–25 metres, good holding) and tender into Quai Saint-Pierre at Vieux Port. Free of charge, unrestricted, and where many of the mid-sized ILTM hospitality yachts spend the week. Tender shuttle takes 5–10 minutes. Early-December water is too cold for swimming, so the anchorage operates purely as a working hospitality base. In stronger Mistral or south-easterly conditions, yachts at anchor may reposition to Port Vauban Antibes or take shelter behind Île Sainte-Marguerite.

Port Vauban — Antibes, French Riviera

The largest yacht marina on the French Riviera, 15 nautical miles east of Cannes. Port Vauban handles superyachts to 165 metres on its deep-water IYCA pontoon. The standard alternative when the Croisette is full or when Mistral conditions favour the more-sheltered Antibes basin — about a forty-minute cruise into the Bay of Cannes or a thirty-minute drive (closer to an hour during ILTM peak-hour traffic). Working teams using the yacht as their off-Croisette base often run Antibes-Cannes by hired road transfer each morning and bring hosted buyers back to the yacht for the evening programme.

Port Gallice & Marina Baie des Anges — Juan-les-Pins, Cagnes-sur-Mer

Two practical smaller marinas between Cannes and Nice. Port Gallice in Juan-les-Pins is a 25-minute drive from La Croisette and handles yachts to 50 metres on its outer pontoon. Marina Baie des Anges in Villeneuve-Loubet handles up to 50 metres and is the closest substantial marina to Nice airport — useful for hosted-buyer arrivals and departures that flex across specific ILTM days.

ILTM week sits at a structural pivot in the global charter calendar — the European year is closing and the Caribbean year is opening simultaneously. The wider context of an ILTM yacht charter is therefore one of two patterns: a short Riviera close-of-year programme (ILTM plus a quiet pre-Christmas Riviera week or Monaco year-end social calendar), or ILTM as the final European hospitality slot before a transatlantic delivery hands the yacht over to a Caribbean Christmas-and-NYE charter.

• Monaco year-end programme. A 40-minute cruise east of Cannes — Port Hercule is open year-round and Monaco runs at full social-calendar intensity through December (Casino de Monte-Carlo, the Hotel de Paris and Hotel Hermitage festive programme, the Christmas village at Port Hercule, the wider Hôtel Metropole year-end programme). The natural Saturday-of-ILTM-week or post-ILTM Friday extension — particularly for clients combining ILTM with year-end client hosting in Monaco.
• Cap Ferrat & Villefranche Bay. A short cruise east of Cannes — Villefranche Bay’s natural deep-water anchorage and Cap Ferrat’s sheltered moorings off the Grand-Hôtel du Cap-Ferrat (which operates year-round through 2026 except for a brief seasonal closure). The natural quieter alternative to Monaco for a Sunday-of-ILTM working lunch or a post-ILTM client-hosting day.
• Cannes & La Croisette Christmas walking programme. Cannes itself is in full Christmas mode through ILTM week — the Croisette in lights, the Christmas village on the Allée de la Liberté, the year-round Cannes restaurant scene operating at lower-density-than-summer pace. Easy to weave a yacht-based ILTM programme with on-foot Croisette dining and Christmas-market drinks across the four working evenings.
• Antibes & the Cap d’Antibes coastline. Port Vauban Antibes is year-round; the Cap d’Antibes is structurally quiet in December (the Hôtel du Cap-Eden-Roc is closed for the season — typically reopens mid-April) but the coastline anchorages off the Cap and the wider Juan-les-Pins curve work well for a quiet on-water Sunday extension.
• Saint-Tropez. Largely closed by early December — most of the headline restaurants, beach clubs and hotels shut from late October through Easter. Practical only as a brief reposition stop for charters running west toward winter refit ports.
• Transatlantic delivery to the Caribbean. For clients booking a Christmas-NYE charter in St Barths, the BVI, Antigua, or the wider Caribbean, ILTM week is often the yacht’s final European hosting slot before the 10-to-14-day transatlantic delivery (via Gibraltar and the Canary Islands to the eastern Caribbean). Boatcrowd routinely runs ILTM-week European hospitality charters that hand over to a Caribbean charter from 22-23 December onwards — the yacht is the constant, the season changes.

Early December is past the closing of the headline Cap d’Antibes seasonal restaurants (Hôtel du Cap-Eden-Roc has typically closed for the season by late October). The Cannes-proper dining set narrows to the year-round Croisette-hotel restaurants and the city-centre institutions that operate through the winter. The rooms below are the ILTM-week anchors — all open year-round and well-known to luxury-travel buyers and exhibitors. Reservations should be made at the time of charter booking.

ILTM’s 09:00-to-18:00 pre-scheduled-appointment schedule means the social programme starts hard at 18:30 each evening. The Croisette hotel bars below run as the standing post-meeting networking venues for hosted buyers and exhibitors not booked into a specific hosted dinner. Reservations help; arrival before 18:00 helps more.

The defining nightlife of ILTM is not late-night nightclub culture — the hosted-buyer programme schedule is back-to-back across the working day and most hosted buyers turn in by midnight. The four evenings are structured around hosted dinners (supplier-to-hosted-buyer), the official ILTM programme parties, and the Croisette hotel-bar circuit for the open hours between dinner and bed. The list below covers the standing late venues; the official ILTM party calendar is published in the run-up to the show each year.

• Yacht-hosted hosted-buyer dinners. The single most concentrated ILTM evening format. Each major luxury-travel exhibitor running a yacht hospitality programme hosts 8-to-25 hosted buyers per evening across the four working nights — pre-dinner cocktails on the upper deck, hosted multi-course dinner in the saloon, brand programme woven through the menu and service. Boatcrowd’s clients hosting on the yacht arrange custom catering, branded décor, and dedicated guest-list management through our concierge.
• The official ILTM evening party programme. RX runs a series of official ILTM evening events through the four working days — the headline ILTM Welcome Party (typically Monday or Tuesday evening) and the closing-night gala (Thursday) are the largest. Hosted buyers are typically auto-invited; exhibitors can request tickets through the organiser.
• Croisette hotel-bar circuit. Martinez, Majestic, Carlton and Grand Hôtel cocktail bars operate as the unofficial post-dinner ILTM meeting venues from 22:00 onwards. Most senior hosted buyers and exhibitor leadership rotate through one or two of these across the week.
• Bâoli Cannes. The defining Cannes nightclub — harbour-front, just east of Vieux Port. December operations are quieter than the summer-event peaks but the club remains open and runs through ILTM week. Mostly relevant as a closing-stop after the hotel-bar circuit winds down around midnight; tables work through the hotel concierge or your charter team.
• Casino Croisette & Casino Barrière Le Croisette. The two Cannes casinos run year-round programmes — Casino Barrière’s Salon Privé and the Casino Croisette gaming floors provide a quieter late-evening alternative to the nightclub circuit. Dress codes are enforced; passport required for entry.
• Off-Croisette dinner programme. A meaningful share of ILTM senior-level hosted dinners run off the Croisette — particularly inland at Mougins, Saint-Paul-de-Vence and the year-round Cap d’Antibes rooms still open in December — with the yacht as the return base for a nightcap and continued discussion.

ILTM creates a meaningful event premium against the wider December Riviera market — ILTM-week demand is concentrated, the available pool of yachts is small (the Riviera fleet is largely in winter refit by early December), and Vieux Port and Port Canto berths are tightly held. But the underlying winter rates are the softest of the year on Mediterranean charter yachts, so the absolute ILTM-week numbers are well below the summer-event equivalents. ILTM-week rates typically run 1.4–1.8× the equivalent yacht’s standard December winter rate — but the absolute rate is significantly lower than the same yacht commands during Cannes Lions, Cannes Film Festival, or Monaco GP weeks.

Standard French Riviera charters include the yacht, full professional crew (captain, mate, chef, full stewardess and deck team), comprehensive insurance, and use of all on-board equipment and tenders. Most charters include the marina berth at the embarkation port; ILTM-week Vieux Port or Port Canto berths are typically charged separately and command a meaningful premium over standard French Riviera December marina rates. Tender shuttle into Cannes from anchored or Antibes-based yachts is included as standard.

Additional costs are APA (typically 30–35% of the charter rate during ILTM — hosted-buyer cocktail service, hosted-dinner catering, wine pairings, branded elements), French VAT (20% on French-flagged charters in French waters), and a recommended crew gratuity of 10–15% paid at the end of the charter. Custom multi-course tasting menus by the yacht chef, additional waitstaff and bar staff for hosted dinners, branded floral and table décor, AV equipment for short supplier presentations, and guest-list management are charged through APA or arranged separately depending on scale. Most ILTM hosting clients also brief the yacht chef on a specific brand-story menu — ideally six to eight weeks ahead.

ILTM sits at the structural pivot of the global charter year — the European season closing, the Caribbean season opening. The same yacht can be booked across ILTM Cannes + a transatlantic delivery to the Caribbean + a Christmas-NYE Caribbean charter as a single end-of-year programme. The natural pattern: ILTM hospitality 30 Nov – 3 Dec on the Croisette, yacht departs Cannes 5 Dec for a 10-to-14-day transatlantic delivery via Gibraltar and the Canaries, arrives in the eastern Caribbean (typically Antigua or St Maarten) by 18-20 December, then hosts a Christmas-and-NYE charter at St Barths, the BVI, or the wider Caribbean. The yacht is the constant across the whole arc; ILTM hospitality covers the European book-end, the post-Christmas charter the Caribbean opening. Boatcrowd’s brokerage team manages these multi-leg year-end programmes regularly.