An ever-increasing variety of yacht charter customers
For Dream Yacht, the summer yacht charter season in Europe ends on a positive note. Occupancy rates exceeded 90% in the high season between mid-June and early September. The company boasts that 50,796 people sailed on its 830 boats in over 50 destinations during the summer. With cabin cruises, Dream Yacht recorded a 27% increase in sales over 2022.
Loïc Bonnet, founder of Dream Yacht, highlights the development of last-minute booking, which allows customers to adapt, but is also a challenge for fleet organization: "There are always more last-minute cancellations. For example, despite the fires in Greece, we didn't have any cancellations. People could look at the maps and decide where to go. Our most popular destinations in Europe remain Croatia, Greece and Italy, and in the West Indies, the BVI, Martinique and the Bahamas. We had to optimize our existing bases, as the fleet had been greatly reduced by Covid. We continue to attract new entrants to yachting, with skippered charters in excess of 50% in the Mediterranean and Sunloft yachts selling well. The increase in this demand poses a problem in terms of the cost of bringing skippers to the area."
At the same time, Dream Yacht concedes a very difficult summer in the West Indies, due to very high airfares, which limited bookings until December, but seems to be improving.
High costs
From the operator's point of view, Loïc Bonnet stresses the need for major investments and expenditure, which are not always easy to sustain: "Boat prices have risen by 50% in 5 years, which means we have to really question our business model. At the same time, we're facing a scarcity of marina berths. By buying electric boats, we're looking for new customers from outside the boating industry, but we have to bear the extra cost. Initial feedback from the electric Aura 51 this summer has been good, with good reliability and responsiveness from Fountaine-Pajot."
Boat sales on the decline
Dream Yacht's boat sales business, is facing more difficulties, linked to the economic context, explains the founder of Dream Yacht, who highlights different trends from recent years: "Dream Yacht sales are down 40%. The Covid dried up the market for a few years. The affluent middle classes haven't seen their incomes rise as much as boat prices. We're seeing a trend towards downsizing, with more sales of small boats, which in our case are 38 to 42 footers, and more demand for monohulls. This is true for both new and pre-owned boats. We're also seeing people switching from buying a boat on their own to taking part in our fractional programs to cut costs. This trend isn't making sales of electric boats any easier either, with an electric Dufour 530 costing around ?60,000 more than a traditional model."
