GMS Organisers Admit Growth Stagnates
Spira Tlhankane | Monday May 6, 2019 12:02
The 2019 Shell Gaborone Motorshow was held at Game City Roof Top last Friday and Saturday.
One of the show organisers Christian Ernest admitted that this year was much more difficult to put up the show because of their shared partnership.
He said their growth trajectory this year was stagnant. “We have been growing year on year for the past five years, but 2019 has been somewhat compromised,” he added.
Ernest said the reason is that their market is losing a lot of share to import cars. “There are more and more import cars coming into the country and they are taking a lot from the brand new car dealers,” he said. He also admitted that their budget is slowly being depleted.
“But we believe that going into the future, the show is going to survive based on sponsorship from projected finance partners like Shell. We expect the show to be bigger and better next year,” he said. Ernest also added that import cars from Mogoditshane and pre-owned cars are from two different markets therefore as the GMS they are much focused on the brand new car market. Ernest also revealed that this year the show was what they call a dealer focus.
“Last year there was no dealer and it was cars from other countries, there were no dealers. Our economy is somewhat stagnant right now so we want to put focus on the cars that people can buy directly from dealerships,” he said.
He added the 2019 Shell Gaborone Motor Show reduced the exotic cars, but made sure that the dealers brought their ordinary ranges that a normal Motswana can buy.
Even though there were no Ferraris and Bentleys, this year’s show was a big opportunity for the local car industry to showcase its latest products and technologies all at once. The show featured some of the popular cars like BMW, Range Rover, Nissan, and Jeep. Suzuki was also showcasing their scooters and small bikes. But the biggest misses there were the absent Mercedes, Toyota and Subaru.
Besides flashy cars, Gaborone Motor Show still played host to plenty of important product launches. The show gave dealers a chance to get the right car at the right price and at the right time. Some of the cars were so well equipped they looked good and even the children who attended the show loved them.