"Superyacht market growth in Asia: a Superyacht Singapore Association perspective,
by Jean-Jacques Lavigne, Executive Director, SSA.
Yesterday, in part A of my comments on the growth of the Superyacht industry in Asia, I focused on some key developments in Singapore. Today, I will be focusing on 1) the regional charter market, 2) The cruising grounds, 3) Superyacht building in Asia and finally 4) Superyacht ownership, four very important subjects indeed.
1) Asia’s Superyacht charter market: undoubtedly, this is a sector that is still deeply lagging behind though steady progress have been made in the last couple of years. The region is not sort of cruising grounds and destinations, but somehow we are still not taken very seriously. A few key factors:
- Inventory: historically the region had very few good quality yachts available for charter. For one, Asian owned Superyachts were not so many and if there are, few of them were available for charter. The region has or had some of the most exciting yachts ever built (Evergreen, White Rabbit, Asean Lady…) but I never heard of them ever being chartered. As yacht charter is my day-to-day business, I tried to charter some of them what I had very pressing needs, but not too avail. Which doesn’t mean that I didn’t have fun time onboard myself. Now, with Phuket turning into a solid cruising destinations and with over 40 superyachts making the season there, there are more yachts to choose from, and some of them are really stunning. There are the so-called resident yachts like Maverick II, Lady Arraya, Philkaden, Calisto, Happy, a couple of stunning Leopard and there are the occasional Superyachts that will come for one season to “give it a shot”. “Noble House” and “Sierra Romeo” were two of them this year. Then, there is Singapore again with a fast growing base of yachts available for charter that can quite easily move around to good destinations given Singapore axial geographical location. Hye Sea 1 (Ferretti 80), Hye Seas 2 (Azimut 116), Nymphaea (a 108 Broward), IFA (Maiora 84) are some of the Resident Superyachts available for charter, soon to be accompanied by a Westport 130, a probably of couple of new ones in the 50 meters category. In more exotic destinations like Koto Kinabalu in Borneo (East Malaysia) or Bali it is also possible to catch some of the local charter yachts but that could require a bit more planning those areas are mostly covered by yachts with a year-long cruising plan. Typically, the customers have to meet the yacht where it is and plan their holiday plan based on the specific cruising plan of these vessels. Geisha, Silolona, Mutiara Laut, Asia, and Raja Laut are probably the most famous of these itinerant vessels.
- However, in spite of that fast developing inventory, the Phuket season was not phenomenal and Singapore’s winter/spring charter season (how dare I write winter for Singapore?) was nothing to shout about. I have a couple of very clear explanations for that.
1) The major charter brokers are absent from the market. Edmiston has an office in Shanghai mostly doing new built sales and brokerage. Since mid-2010 Northrop and Johnson is also represented in Hong Kong, Singapore and Phuket and Burgess/Oceanstyle signed Hye Seas II under their central agency for charter. And that’s about it. To be clear, the Burgess, Fraser and Ocean Independence of this world do have links with some of the local charter agencies like Simpson Marine, ONE15 Luxury Yachting or others but this is a very ad-hoc and opportunistic.
2) This leads to the second problems: the charter brokers are not serious about it either. Once in a while a charter broker somewhere would drop to local agents a message with “a client” wanting “to charter a yacht in 2 weeks time” typically in an exotic location where there is no yacht available at that time. Once we fully understand the needs and the wants, add in the relocation fees, the deal grows cold as the price gets too high or the client decided to go somewhere else or the timing is too tight. My take is that 1) charter brokers worldwide do not work hard enough and early enough to propose alternative destinations in Asia to their regular customers. Unknown places, unknown yachts added to low spontaneous demand are not very conducive factors to market growth. And 2) that available charter yachts don’t work hard enough at marketing them to the world. This is particularly aggravated by the third problem.
3) Yacht owners/captains are often not serious about it. The number of good quality Superyacht arriving in the region for let’s say 6 months and deciding at arrival to try to “pick up some charters” is quite phenomenal. With such poor planning and little marketing before hand, no wonder they grow disappointed after 3 months and decide to pack and go. This is quite typical of what I call the “Asia syndrome” which I observed in many western companies doing business in the region. They would have 80 people to do one job (let’s say sales) in their local market but they would expect 5 guys to do the same for the whole of Asia. Then they wonder why their “Asian market” is not growing any faster. Same for the charter business. Without putting being it the right level of resources in time, people and money, that will simply not work. Captains, owners and brokers will get disappointed and draw the wrong conclusions, and quickly spread the word that there is no charter market in Asia. Yeah, right.
Enough for today! 2), 3) and 4) will come another day. Stay tuned!
Jean-Jacques Lavigne can be reached at
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