Due to the impact of the new pneumonia epidemic, the Mobile World Congress (MWC) announced its cancellation on Wednesday. Organizer GSMA Telecommunications Association said that despite local and national health officials guaranteeing the event was safe, it cancelled the event from February 24 to 27.

“The GSMA canceled MWC Barcelona 2020 because global concerns about coronavirus outbreaks, travel and other conditions prevented GSMA from hosting the event,” said John Hoffman, CEO of the host GSMA in a statement. According to the earlier agenda, the decision to cancel was originally on Friday.

MWC is the world’s largest telecommunications technology summit and attracts more than 100,000 visitors each year. According to Reuters, 5,000-6,000 of them are from China. In order to avoid the impact of immunization, GSMA has already taken many measures: Ban any tourists from Hubei, China, and require Chinese tourists to prove that they were already abroad two weeks before the meeting.

MWC’s note on cancelling this year’s meeting, picture source: MWC official website

Earlier, Ida Corau, mayor of Barcelona, Spain made it clear that the city is ready to host MWC.  Spanish health officials said there was no reason to cancel MWC. A WHO spokesman, Tarek Jasarevich, also said that there was no evidence that the outbreak had spread outside China, so WHO is not currently calling for the cancellation of large gatherings.

However, GSMA still made a cautious decision. According to sources, the delay is not a realistic option, as MWC’s sheer scale has almost packed Barcelona’s hotels, restaurants and exhibition grounds.

In fact, before MWC announced its cancellation, the absence of large companies has made this event a “ghost show”: LG, NVIDIA, Amazon, Sony, ZTE, Nokia, BT, Vodafone, Deutsche Telekom, etc. have successively withdrawn, and some mobile phone manufacturers announce the cancellation of the conference and reserve only participation. Although many companies hope to stick to the last minute and support the event with local European staff, the absence of media and visitors still makes it difficult to guarantee the effectiveness of the promotion.

In fact, many international summits outside MWC have been affected by the new crown pneumonia: the artificial intelligence summit AAAI held on February 7 was attended by more than 800 Chinese participants, accounting for one fifth of the number of participants. During Fashion Week, Chinese visitors also decrease significantly. WHO calls for national personnel to remain calm in response to the epidemic, but cancelling activities during special periods is a responsible option.