March 24 (Bloomberg) -- The Tokyo Motor Show’s exhibitor numbers will plunge 49 percent this year as automakers including Bayerische Motoren Werke AG and Daimler AG pare marketing spending amid falling demand for new vehicles.

The event will host 122 companies this year, down from 241 in 2007 when the show was last held, organizer Japan Automobile Manufacturers Association said today. The exhibition, starting Oct. 23, has also been shortened by four days to 13.

Volkswagen AG, Ford Motor Co., General Motors Corp. and Chrysler LLC will also sit out the Tokyo show, one of the industry’s largest, as carmakers cut costs amid the global recession. At least six major global auto shows, where carmakers typically spend millions of dollars to display their newest models, have been canceled or scaled back since November.

“We’re in the middle of a once-in-a-century economic crisis,” Satoshi Aoki, chairman of the carmakers’ group, said at a press conference in Tokyo. Exhibitor numbers may recover by the 2011 show, said Aoki, who is also Honda Motor Co.’s chairman.

Porsche AG, Ferrari SpA, Lotus, Hyundai Motor Co. and Maserati SpA. are among foreign automakers still expected to attend the show, JAMA said. All of Japan’s carmakers will have stands, the group added.

Daimler’s Mercedes Japan unit decided to skip Tokyo “to concentrate our limited resources on the Frankfurt motor show,” spokesman Naoto Domeki said today by phone.

Sales in Japan, the world’s third-largest auto market, are dominated by domestic companies, with European, U.S. and South Korean brands accounting for just 6.8 percent of the total, excluding minicars.

In the U.S., the world’s largest auto market, Japanese, South Korean and European companies raised their share to a record 55.7 percent this year through February, according to Autodata Corp.

The reduced participation at the Tokyo event mirrors the decision by eight automakers to skip or limit activities at January’s Detroit show, the main such event in North America.

Floor space at this year’s Tokyo show will shrink by almost half to 22,594 square meters (243,2000 square feet). A commercial-vehicle exhibition has also been canceled, JAMA said. The show will now close on Nov. 4 rather than Nov. 8.

To contact the reporters on this story: Naoko Fujimura in Tokyo at nfujimura@bloomberg.net; Alan Ohnsman in Seoul at aohnsman@bloomberg.net

Last Updated: March 24, 2009 02:46 EDT