The organisers of the dormant Geneva motor present have introduced aggressive plans first to lend their experience to the working of an “final competition of automotive excellence” in Qatar later this yr, after which to deliver again a standard Swiss present in Geneva’s Palexpo exhibition centre in February 2024.
The Geneva organisers imagine the Qatar occasion, which they name GIMS (Geneva Worldwide Motor Present) Qatar, can entice 200,000 guests to Doha, the capital of a rustic that payments itself because the “most open” within the area, and which is presently basking within the success of the latest soccer World Cup.
The brand new motoring competition will probably be staged between 5-14 October and is scheduled to run each two years thereafter, coinciding with this yr’s Qatar F1 Grand Prix already scheduled between 6-8 October.
The occasion is part of a daring transfer by Qatari authorities to construct the nation’s vacationer numbers, presently working at round two million a yr, to 6 million by 2030. The purpose, they are saying, is to transform Qatar “from a stopover to a vacation spot.”
The Qatar Motoring Competition can have three important strands: a traditional static exhibition within the capital’s centrally positioned Doha Exhibition and Conference Centre (DECC), a collection of driving occasions on Qatar’s Lusail racing circuit, which is 12 miles north of the town centre, and a programme of off-road driving occasions at close by Sealine, the place the desert meets the ocean south of Doha.
Exhibitors are being invited to arrange their very own desert camps within the Sealine area to draw the 4×4 lovers that abound in Center Japanese international locations. As well as, a brand new car museum that’s formally resulting from open in 2025, will show a part of its “distinctive” traditional automobile assortment throughout this yr’s GIMS Qatar occasion.
GMIS Qatar’s CEO Sandro Mesquita, appointed CEO of the Geneva Worldwide Motor Present in June 2020 — quickly after the Swiss occasion disappeared from the worldwide present schedules — guarantees “a variety of distinctive driving experiences” in Qatar this October. A key characteristic will probably be a Parade of Excellence, designed to draw present members and native automobile lovers alike, on the Doha Corniche, a six-kilometre seaside freeway.
