ONBOARD Magazine winter 2019

COMMENT
Horses for courses and the
future for yacht charters
Cast your mind back to the day
when easyJet first splashed their
website name the full-length of their
aircraft using day glow orange lettering and
started offering discounted fares using a
self booking system. The traditional airlines
were up in arms at the new upstarts and
were crying out ‘foul’. What was once the
world’s favourite airline, even suggested
such a ruse was diluting the pleasure of
flying and that customer safety might be
compromised.
Now with young Turks challenging way guests
book charters on superyachts, history is
repeating itself with the traditional retail
yacht brokers suggesting that cheaper
yacht rental agencies who employ the Air-
B&B style of business model are damaging
and diluting the integrity of superyacht
charter business.
Yet hardly a month goes by without a new
company sending through a press release
extoling the advantages of self selecting a
yacht and booking it yourself on the Internet
saving yourself a bucketful of central agent
and booking agent fees. Get My Boat claims
to be the world’s largest boat rental and
water experience marketplace offering
luxurious holidays aboard beautiful sailing and
motor yachts. Click & Boat is yet another
outfit offering much the same and making
the same claims. There is even the Ahoy
Club, an Internet yacht booking system
that is funded and fronted by superyacht
owner fed up with the way he is treated by
the more traditionalist brokerage houses.
In much the same way as traditional carriers
first complained about the budget airlines
so now the large retail charter firms
have voiced their opinions and disquiet.
Returning to the airline analogy, it will be
remembered that with Sleazyjet and Ruinair
getting a toehold in the market, those
traditionalists initially launched their own
similar services with different names so
Michael Howorth
asks whether the 15%
commission charged
by retail charter yacht
brokers is under threat
as to cash in without diluting their brand.
British Airways created their own shortlived
Go, while KLM created Transavia and
their sister company Air France, launched
Joon. When those upstarts became jaded,
the airlines threw in the towel and the
rest of the story is history. BA started
charging for bags, dumped free food and
free seat selection. Little wonder that in
2017, the purveyors of cheap, no-frills
flying accounted for 29% of all passenger
traffic around the world, a figure up 10%
on the previous year.
So what does the future hold for luxury
yacht charter? Will Benetti set up an
Air-B&B style brokerage house to rival
its own brokerage at Fraser? What will
MYBA or LYBRA do to stop the rot? The
traditionalists believe that new boys on the
block are ‘ruffling feathers’. They highlight
concerns suggesting that companies not
using established contracts to execute
charters, could result in both the yacht
owner and the charterer being unprotected
if serious issues were to arise. Another
concern voiced is that several Internet
brokers are featuring yachts on their
websites without the central agent or
owner’s permission.
The way I see it, there is room for both
models. If you want a holiday in a hotel
but you don’t know where in the world
you want to go, you should visit a travel
agent. But if all you want is a cheap flight
to Nice, it makes much more sense to
me to check out an airline’s website and
make the booking yourself. Similarly if
you want a large yacht for an important
family get-together, it’s best to employ
a professional and knowledgeable broker
to find the right boat for you at the best
price. But if all you want is a Sunseeker
40 metre with a pick up and drop off in
Antibes next Saturday, why on earth do
you need to pay 20% more for the privilege
of getting the boat’s name from a broker?
ONBOARD | WINTER 2019 | 5