Yachting is a term which covers a large spectrum of services, activities, and vessels. We are focusing on yacht-charter whose core is the European market and mostly the Mediterranean. This multi-billion industry showed growth especially in the eastern European countries where Croatia and Greece are leaders accompanied with Italy, Turkey. Spain and France. The revenue exceeds tens billions of Euro. We are bringing an overview of the most important players in the industry.
WHAT IS A YACHT CHARTER FLEET?
A fleet operator or sometimes simply referred to as “fleet”, is a company who owns and places a yacht for a charter week on the market. Bookings are either made directly or throughout charter agents. The biggest fleets operate up to 1000 yachts, while the average fleets operate between 20 and 100 yachts; mostly sailboats, but also catamarans and motor yachts. There are more than 10.000 yachts in charter worldwide. Close to a thousand fleets worldwide generate a yearly turnover of over 2 Billion Euro.
WHO ARE CHARTER BROKERS?
Charter brokers are agents who mediate between the charter company who owns a fleet and customers looking to charter a yacht. They operate as tourist agencies specialized only for charter, helping to find the most suitable solution for one’s yacht preferences by gathering a big number of different vessels from different companies in their offer.
The biggest brokers mediate up to 7000 yacht charters per year. The average cost of a charter week is about 4000 EUR. The average broker mediates around 200 charters per year or 0.8 Million Euro.
THE ROLE OF SHIPYARDS IN YACHT CHARTER
The biggest shipyards build and sell each over 400 charter yachts per year, employ 600 – 2500 people, and sell to charter fleets worldwide. There are 15 major shipyards that create a combined yearly turnover of over 1.5 Billion Euro.
Sounds like a lot of numbers, huh? Yacht charter is a growing industry and there is no doubt about that – but it is also
open to a whole range of people who can engage and make a career out of it.
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