At March’s Geneva Motor Show, a 15-minute press conference cost the world’s largest carmakers a cool 550 euros a second. For many in the industry, such extravagance is looking like an overpriced luxury that it no longer has the stomach for.

The car industry will roll into 18 major international shows this year - one every 20 days - on a gruelling journey that some consider as archaic as the scantily clad female models that many still drape over their newest releases to tempt the hordes of photographers.

Carmakers are wondering just how many of the dozens of global car shows they need to attend, while increasing the number of big-ticket announcements and car launches made outside the traditional show circuit. Some have hired consultants to develop more cost-effective strategies than flying hundreds of journalists to expensive hotel rooms and putting thousands of dollars behind the bar.

“From a product point of view, there is a sense in the industry that the shows have become something of an anachronism,” says Martin Hayes, executive chairman of Automotive PR, a consultancy.

“You could see at Geneva this year that there is a marked decline in the number of new announcements at the shows. The carmakers are looking to spend their money elsewhere . . . The moveable feast of the car shows is less crucial to sales.”

For many who attended the Geneva Motor Shows of old, the overriding memory of two days in the urbane, affluent Swiss city was not a new Peugeot hatchback or Ford saloon, but an evening spent drinking and gambling on the icy waters of the city’s lake.

Jaded by scores of model launches and weary from trudging the show’s cavernous halls, the world’s automotive media would gleefully decamp to a boat hired by Volkswagen, kitted out with rum and roulette wheels.

The fun lasted until 2003, when VW pulled the plug on a grand annual party that had become a byword for the industry’s marketing largesse. “There were no products on the boat. No content at all. It was just a party. What kind of industry pays for something like this?” says a person with knowledge of the event’s organisation, adding that it cost 1.5m euros each year. VW declined to comment.

Officially, carmakers refuse to discuss how much of their marketing budget goes on the travelling circus, and none was willing to speak to the FT on the record about its spending plans.

The International Organisation of Motor Vehicle Manufacturers, the global body that accredits and schedules the international motor show calendar, also declined to comment on the industry’s appetite for specific events.

But it is an open secret among marketing directors in charge of the branding purse-strings that the economic logic behind the show circuit is eroding in a more internationalised and connected global market.

“People are really starting to think about just how important the shows are,” says the head of communications at one of the world’s largest carmakers. “They are convenient in terms of meeting everyone involved in the business. But are they a good place to launch a new vehicle? No.”

On average, the world’s seven biggest spend about $15m on each of the three major international shows; Detroit, Geneva and Frankfurt-Paris, according to marketing officials at the companies.

It is not just floating pleasure boats that jack up the costs for an industry that has struggled with profitability since the onset of the financial crisis. Chrysler used to fire new cars from a cannon at some shows, while truck brand Ram once launched a new model in Detroit with cowboys herding cows through the city centre, amid biting January cold.

The logistics behind each show mimic a small travelling army. Carmakers ship semi-permanent two-storey structures boasting meeting rooms, lounges, bars and shops to the shows, where they are constructed and filled with vehicles and marketing materials. Scores of management, public relations and marketing personnel swarm the stands. Then there are the thousands of global automotive journalists, many of whom have grown accustomed to being flown to the shows for free and staying in carmaker-paid hotel rooms.

Finally there are the pre-show and evening entertainment events, ranging from coffee and lunch lounges in five-star hotels to cocktail parties and four-course dinners where journalists clamour for a handshake with a senior executive.

“They are definitely becoming less outlandish. The days of obscene amounts of entertainment are dying,” says one external consultant employed by a carmaker to draw up a new approach to shows.

Many brands withdrew from the major shows between 2008 and 2010 as sales crashed, while those that did attend had little to shout about. Sergio Marchionne, chief executive of Fiat-Chrysler, said that the 2008 Detroit Show ‘smelled of death’.

And the rising importance of emerging markets has led to more Asian shows being added to the calendar, forcing carmakers to pull out of events in developed markets.

Britain’s motor show was cancelled after 2008, last year’s Bologna and Melbourne shows were called off due to lack of interest, and this year’s events in Sydney and Belgrade have been cancelled.

Carmakers have realised that standalone car launches outside the show circuit provide exclusivity, and can use the internet and live teleconferencing to get a global audience.

“What is the point of sending your firework up with 10 to 15 others?” says the head of marketing at a global carmaker. “We save our important, strategic launches for one-off events.”

Furthermore, the rise of more futuristic cars mean many carmakers are muscling in on technology events such as Las Vegas’s Consumer Electronics Show or Barcelona’s Mobile World Congress, stretching their marketing budgets and shifting their focus.

“Ten years ago, if you needed to sell a car, you would have to show it all over the world,” says another industry marketing director. “Nowadays everybody can see it immediately. The internet has made the car show obsolete from a product point of view.”

Carmakers have already split the global calendar into ‘showing shows’ and ‘selling shows’, executives say, differentiating between events used mainly for networking and meeting the media, such as Detroit and Geneva, and those important to attract new customers, such as Los Angeles, Moscow and Dubai.

“Who really wants to be in Detroit in January? It is the lousiest place on earth,” says a former industry executive. “The companies don’t want to go, the press can’t always get there and there’s not a single potential car buyer for hundreds of miles around.”

Shows have their supporters too. Host cities, convention centres and hotels cash in when the global car circus rumbles into town, and organising national car associations fight doggedly to keep their event on the calendar. In Geneva hotel rooms cost as much as €600 a night, with a minimum three-night stay imposed at almost all venues.

“There is lots of grumbling about the shows but there is a certain sense of inevitability about them,” says the external consultant who is working on alternative approaches. “It will take a few big beasts to pull out of one or the other to make a big change, and nobody wants to be the first.”