Yachting Exclusive: Fraser Yachts Has Mixed News for the Yachting Industry

    ST. TROPEZ, FRANCE, July 26, 2010 /24-7PressRelease/ -- With the summer season is in full swing a sense of normality has finally returned to the luxury yacht market. Although we may be some way short of the heady days of 2008, the last few months have seen a gradual increase in yacht sales, yacht management and crew placements. Unfortunately the uptake of yacht charters and new-build projects has continued to suffer, but while this represents bad news for owners, charter brokers and construction yards, those looking for cut-price charters and new-builds will be rewarded as long as they act quickly.

During the month of June we experienced a very active market with an average of one yacht (over 24m) being sold each day. This represented a continuation of the steady sales that we have so far experienced this year. Although this is undoubtedly positive news it continues to be a buyer's market and although the majority of the yachts that were recently sold were competitively priced, the owners generally had to accept much lower offers than they had hoped for. Although we are expecting to see a dip in the yacht brokerage market during the summer we are expecting it to recover when the boat show season starts in September.

As we predicted last month bookings for luxury yacht charters have been coming in very late this summer and as a result a good number of charter brokers are offering very attractive deals in order to tempt last minute clients. While most owners began by adding value, such as relocation fees or other on-board services, to charter packages, the last few weeks have seen an increasing number of price reductions, with discounts of as much as 35% being offered. In order to form a more complete picture of how the market has performed in comparison with 2009, we will have to wait until the end of July when the majority of bookings for Mediterranean yacht charters have been completed.

Thankfully there is more positive news for the yacht management market, which has experienced a steady increase in demand over the last 6 months. This trend reflects the an increasing appreciation of the complex demands of yacht ownership and the fact that the additional cost of using a professional yacht management service is generally rewarded by significant savings in operating costs. Given that the yacht industry has changed dramatically in recent years, with increasingly complex legal, financial, safety, recruitment and employment regulations coming into effect, we are expecting the demand for more professional services to spread to other yacht services including charter crew placement and brokerage.

Unfortunately there continues to be a lack of new-build yacht construction projects and consequently shipyards are still suffering from a lack of demand. Interestingly a large proportion of the new-build projects that are going ahead are for speculative projects, with their investors reasoning that by the time the yachts are finished the market would have recovered to such a degree that their value would have risen in line with renewed demand. Given the speculative nature of these projects it is somewhat unsurprising that the majority of their designs are relatively traditional, which is in contrast to recent projects with specific clients that have tended to be far more groundbreaking in terms of their design.

Finally, there is positive news for crew as after a two-year period that experienced high fluctuations, we are finally beginning to see more stability in this sector of the yachting industry. Naturally these fluctuations have greatly impacted on the CVs of huge numbers of crew candidates and we are advising captains and owners not to judge applicants on their experience (or lack of experience) over the past 18 months. 2009 was a tough year for the majority of people and even some of the most qualified and experienced crew members would have experienced short periods of unemployment.

Fraser Yachts is a full service yachting company offering super yacht charter and mega yacht charter, luxury yacht sales and construction, as well as yacht management and crew-placement services. For further information, please visit www.fraseryachts.com.

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