The snow is falling heavily and there is a kind of end-of-term feeling in Davos as the WEF annual meeting enters its last full day. Not a bad time, then, to ask why people really bother to come here.
 
There is a lot of scepticism among outsiders that Davos is just a big talking shop, full of self-importance and hot air. Some of this doubtless comes from the way the WEF presents itself. “Shaping the Global Agenda” is hardly a modest goal.

Talk of the “spirit of Davos” can, let’s face it, grate.
 
But the top business leaders wandering the halls here don’t buy into that wholesale. Chats with a number of them over the past few days have shown a general fondness for the meeting but for interestingly diverse reasons.
 
First there are the networkers like the European blue-chip CEO who said he goes nowhere near any of the discussion panels and comes simply to meet people. Then there are the sellers like the American hi-tech entrepreneur who was out flogging his latest toy or the Middle Eastern official who said he was tooting his organisation’s horn.
 
But the intellectual debate available is also a major draw. A leading wealth manager told me that of course he was here to meet clients, but what he really liked was that once a year he got to go “back to school”. Where else can he spend time digging into old issues and learning about completely new ones?