YachtBooker evaluated the actual pre-booking trends for bareboat yacht charters right before the biggest boat show BOOT 2014 opens its gates in Düsseldorf. The result as it is shown in the graphic below can be considered as a snapshot from Mid-January 2014.
The German charter fleet managers can start their season 2014 quite relaxed with an average occupancy of 45 % of their charter weeks. This is a plus of more than 6 % compared to the previous start of the BOOT in Düsseldorf. This January the Greek bareboat charter providers defended a 32 %-milestone that was already laid in 2013. All other major charter destinations in Europe appear in January 2014 with generally lower pre-booking levels than the previous year. In Mid-January 2013 the average European pre-booking rate reached nearly 38 %. Now at beginning of 2014 the bareboat charter market faces an average reservation occupancy of only 34 %. While Turkey, with a deficit of just 2%, is suffering on a very high level of 40% pre-booked charter weeks, Croatia, Spain, Netherlands and Italy are still missing 6 - 7 % to reach their pre-reservation targets from the previous year. Especially hard this appears to most italian charter fleets because the average booking weeks per yacht do not reach more than 4 weeks yet. This is a pre-booking rate of only 24 % compared to 31 % in last January 2013.
How this pre-booking percentage was calculated? For each charter destination we determined the average amount of booked weeks per bareboat yacht during the last years. While in German destinations 14 weeks would already mean a great occupancy, in Turkey charter boats should receive around 18 weeks per season. Than we simply set this Week/Season value in relation to already registered reservations (until 15.01.2014) in the YachtBooker Reservation System. The result is the pre-booking in percent.
You should be aware that the presented values are averaged over whole nations and that within a single nation sometimes exists differences of 50 % between charter fleet occupancies. Also the plotes tendencies are not representative for the powerboat sector. Sailboat charters make up around 90% of the charter bookings in Europe.
Nobody can predict the development of charter bookings that will happen the next months. From the past we learned that every season has its own characteristics and indvidual development. Political and economical factors also play a role for the decision of charter customers where to spend their holidays. Another factor that influences yacht charter reservations is the tendency that more and more agencies rely on internet marketing instead of being present themselves on exhibitions. The proportion of charter customers booking their charter vacation online is rising from year to year.