Having played host to the Internationale Automobil-Ausstellung (International Automobile Exhibition in English) since 1951, the city of Frankfurt will handover the baton to Munich for the next installment of the motor show in 2021.
The last IAA held in September 2019 saw 560,000 visitors setting foot on Messe Frankfurt, which constituted a 30% decrease from over 800,000 in 2017 and a high of 935,000 in 2015. There were also notable absentees among the list of exhibitors including Ferrari, Toyota, Renault and Fiat in 2019.
The German Association of the Automotive Industry (VDA) conceded that the format of the IAA had to be redesigned to reflect the changing automotive landscape and invited different cities in Germany to bid for the biennial portion of the passenger car show, with the commercial vehicle exhibition (also named IAA) to remain in Hanover.
“Munich has beaten off the competition from Berlin and Hamburg. All three cities that had made it onto the shortlist of possible locations presented very ambitious and convincing plans for continuing the IAA’s development together with the VDA,” said VDA President Hildegard Müller, adding, “It was a very close race, and for this I sincerely wish to thank those involved.”
According to VDA, the IAA will evolve into a ‘mobility platform’ apart from showcasing the fascination of the car, it is expected to trigger the host city’s development into a ‘smart city’ with intelligent traffic concepts and innovative connectivity linking various modes of transport. In the view of VDA, the city of Munich and its concept offer the best conditions for this and also for the relaunch of the IAA.
The state of Bavaria is also the home turf of BMW and Audi.
