A good summer for boat rentals
In the spring of 2023, in view of inflation and the financial difficulties of many consumers, observers were concerned about the turn the summer yachting season might take, with a potentially shrinking vacation budget. However, initial feedback from yacht charter operators seems to show that, as in the rest of the tourism sector, yachting has retained its appeal. Despite an already record-breaking 2022 season, players such as the Click&Boat rental platform, which combines professional and private rental, still saw the number of bookings increase in June and July by more than 30 to 40%.
Lingering doubts about the manufacture of new boats
At the same time, order books, which were at their peak at the end of the Covid crisis, are not filling up at the same rate in 2023. While the euphoria seems to be subsiding, the first companies - boatbuilders, distributors and equipment manufacturers - are experiencing difficulties, with sales down sharply, and in some cases, staff cutbacks.
Is this simply a return to "reasonable growth", or the beginning of a real crisis for the yachting industry? If they were already under scrutiny in 2022, the autumn 2023 boat shows will still be closely scrutinized in an attempt to identify the underlying trend.
