West Nautical attended the inaugural Superyacht Investor conference held at the Hyatt Regency Hotel, London, on March 14th and 15th.

Geoff was joined on the panel by the MYBA President Fiona Maureso and Senior Broker with My Sea Timothy Clark, which was moderated by Alasdair Whyte, Editor and Co-Founder of Superyacht Investor.

The panel had several lively discussions for an hour on subjects such as what an Owner can do to present their yacht in the best manner in what is becoming a very competitive charter market, and what contribution to owning costs can be covered through commercial chartering.

"Since the financial crisis the deal culture has entered every part of our lives,” said Timothy. “Many customers are looking for a deal.” Many newer customers have become fickle. Fiona Maureso agreed: "We still have many clients that have worked with us for years, but there is a trend amongst some to be less loyal to their brokers and shop around. This really did not used to happen as much.”

The panel also discussed the trend of seeing other industries being changed by new technology, such as Uber, AirBNB etc, and whether they worry that clients will one day book all yacht charter online? Whilst it was generally an agreed opinion that customers for a superyacht charter will generally always want the tailored and personal service that a broker offers in order to book such an expensive holiday as a yacht charter, Geoff Moore did add: "I do think that, in the future, a lot more clients will be booking online. We've got billionaire clients that will only use their own jets, but we also have billionaire clients that will only fly economy - it's about choice."

For any enquiries into charter, please contact our dedicated team at charter@westnautical.com 

by West Nautical