Fans of the Geneva International Motor Show will now have to wait at least another year before it returns to Switzerland, the organization said in a statement. This is the fourth consecutive year the show in Geneva has been cancelled.
They said they would instead be focusing on the Geneva International Motor Show Qatar, which is set to be held in Doha sometime in November 2023.
“Due to the uncertainties in the global economy and geopolitics, as well as the risks related to the development of the pandemic, the organi[z]ers have decided to focus exclusively on the planning of the event in Doha in 2023,” the organi[z]ers, the permanent committee of the Geneva International Motor Show (GIMS), said in a statement.
The biennial Qatar show had already been scheduled for 2023, though it was at first only intended as a companion to the show in Geneva.
This was clearly a rather recent decision from organizers. On April 4th (also known as: not that long ago) the GIMS official Twitter account sent out a message about the next show in February 2023. But alas, it isn’t to be.
The Qatar show will be taking place a few short months after the 2022 World Cup, which is also taking place in the country. The event has been heavily criticized for using migrant labor to build state-of-the-art infrastructure to support the games. Some have even gone so far as to call what the country has done “slavery,” making GIMS’ decision to partner with Qatar for their one and only show in 2023 easy to question. I won’t speculate as to what sort of deal the organization is getting from the country, but let’s say I wouldn’t be surprised if there were some significant financial incentives at play here.
If and when it finally does go down, it’ll be the first Geneva show since 2019.