Automechanika Dubai cancels 2020 event amid Covid-19

Automechanika Dubai will not take place this year, as the UAE continues to recover from Covid-19.

The exhibition was originally postponed to October from June, but the organisers have concluded holding the event this year is unfeasible.

Instead, the event, the region’s largest trade fair for the automotive service industry, will now be held from June 7-9 2021 at the Dubai World Trade Centre.

Last year, the three-day event featured 1,880 exhibitors from 63 countries, while drawing in 32,750 trade visitors from 146 countries, according to organisers Messe Frankfurt Middle East.

“We’re responding to our stakeholders’ best interests, and we’re committed to delivering another successful exhibition next year. All existing exhibitors’ contracts are still valid and can be transferred to 2021,” said Mahmut Gazi Bilikozen, Automechanika Dubai’s show director.

Automechanika Dubai is instead holding a series of webinars, of which there’ve been six so far in the last two months, with more than 2,200 attendees logging on to keep abreast of the latest in auto aftermarket trends and opportunities, the organisers say.

“While they cannot replace the benefits of meeting face-to-face that a physical event provides, our webinars allow us to stay connected with our customers, and to offer them some means of business networking and knowledge sharing,” Bilikozen added.

Covid-19 has devastated the events industry. Globally, mass events have largely ground to a halt to stop the spread of the virus, with losses in the billions.

Dubai World Trade Centre, the epicentre of the regional MICE industry, halted events in March. It plans to return to a regular schedule in October.

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