Poznań car show stalls as Warsaw looks for pole position

Poznań's annual motor show, Poland's biggest, has been canceled this year, giving a boost to the country's smaller exhibitions, auto industry sources said last week. As a result, the new Warsaw International Motor Show (WIMS) is hoping to become the exhibitors' key target this year. The Poznań Motor Show will not be held this May as car manufacturers pulled out of the event blaming the recession in the car market, which has strangled demand for vehicles and forced carmakers to save money, according to the industry. But Poland's smaller fairs, including Warsaw and Katowice, can now fill the vacuum left by the Poznań show, auto industry sources said. "If there is no central event, then it can have positive consequences for local exhibitions," said Stefan Bieliński, president of the Polish Motoring Chamber.

The Warsaw show will not be called off and it will host not just dealers but also manufacturers and importers, according to Paul Blackford, managing director for operations of the London-based CEE Exhibitions, which organizes the Warsaw show. "We already have BMW coming over with their manufacturer stand and several other companies have indicated they're going to be there," Blackford said. But Blackford said Warsaw doesn't compete with Poznań. "Warsaw and Poznań are two different events with different targeting," he said. "Warsaw has a different audience. It's the capital city, it's the seat of the government, media companies and headquarters of many corporations are here." But according to Stéphane Le Guevel, marketing director of Peugeot Polska, the Warsaw fair has big growth potential, even though it was launched only last year. "Warsaw alone accounts for 20% of the Polish car market and in top-range cars it's even more," Le Guevel said.

The Warsaw market's strong demand for expensive cars is a particular boost for the Warsaw fair now because high-end car sales have fallen less than in other categories, according to Le Guevel. Despite Poznań Motor Show's supreme position among Polish car exhibitions, it still is a regional event with most of the nearly 100,000 visitors coming from the area of Poznań only, according to Le Guevel. The WIMS attracted more than 30,000 Varsovians to its first show last November. Warsaw will be able to funnel more visitors to its motor show in the future, as it's a much bigger city than Poznań, according to Makoto Seki, president of Toyota Motor Poland. "The importance of Warsaw will increase," Seki said. Both Seki and Le Guevel told the WBJ that Peugeot Polska and Toyota Motor Poland will display their cars at WIMS this year and will not delegate the responsibility to their dealers.

"Warsaw is the capital city and we want to support the motor show in Warsaw," Seki said. Toyota Motor Poland was one of WIMS's biggest exhibitors last year. The company launched three of its new Corolla models at the show - a move that paid off, according to Seki. Peugeot is going to launch several models in Poland this year, most of them, however, before the November WIMS exhibition, Le Guevel said. "November is late, but we can have one new car in Warsaw," he said.