Geneva's annual motor show to end after more than a century

The annual motor show in Geneva, Switzerland, is coming to a close after more than a century due to dwindling interest and a tough market environment, organisers said on Friday.

First staged in 1905, the Geneva International Motor Show has been a fixture of new vehicle launches, mainly in Europe, attracting at least 120 exhibitors at its peak.

In recent years, the Geneva event has had to compete with bigger, more popular shows in Munich and Beijing.

Alexandre de Senarclens, president of the Comité permanent du Salon International de l’Automobile Foundation – which organises the show – described the decision to discontinue the event as “extremely regrettable”.

“However, it has to be said that the lack of interest shown by manufacturers in the Geneva Salon in a difficult industry context, the competition from the Paris and Munich shows which are favored by their domestic industry, and the investment levels required to maintain such a show, sound the final blow for a future edition,” he said in a statement.

After four years of interruption, starting with the cancellation of the 2020 edition due to the COVID pandemic, the organisers failed to get the show back on the road after what had been billed as a “fresh start” this spring.

The latest edition attracted just one European carmaker, Renault, alongside several Chinese, and drew only 168,000 visitors, short of the 200,000 the event had targeted.

The decision follows the recognition that market conditions in Europe are “not conducive to the success of future editions”, organisers said.

However, they are still planning to hold the Qatar edition of the Geneva show in November 2025.

(Reuters)