BACKGROUND
Once started by the first few yacht enthusiasts in the Mediterranean and the Caribbean, the yacht charter market has grown rapidly during the last decades. Driven by private investment capital and by government subventions into tourism, new charter locations were popping up like mushrooms along the most stunning coasts all over the world.
Advanced technologies in yacht production are bringing out bigger and better equipped yacht models every year. A high proportion is handed over to the management of international charter operators.
The abundance of international low cost flights is the engine that drives charter clients to even more remote destinations.
More and more online systems are now taking over administration, distribution and marketing in the yacht charter market.
Due to its roots, the charter market, compared with other forms of tourism, appears diverse and unstructured. International standards as introduced sucessfully years ago for the products hotel, golf, diving etc. are missing.
PROBLEMS
The problems in the bareboat yacht charter market can be described as follows:
- Due to lack of international quality standards charter clients tend to escape into sheer price dependent evaluation of offered services. Too often this single selection criteria fails satisfying the clients wishes for an adequate cruising vacation.
- Investments from yacht owners and charter operators into better yacht maintenance and higher service standards are not returned by charter rates yet. There is no international quality marketing criteria available, making such efforts visible.
- Charter skippers are leisure seamen, which often start their charter cruises poorly prepared especially when switching to new charter destinations. Consequently, damage rates are rising dramatically, causing long dock times with expensive charter failures and strained operator insurance relations. Advanced skipper briefings performed by charter operators and detailed pre-check-in boat manuals would be essential as add on value to standard check-in procedures in order to compensate the lack of required knowledge about the chartered vessel and the local cruising area.
- The majority of charter operators do not provide any payment security. Some payment security waivers issued by charter brokers just cover the bankrupcy of the intermediary agent but not the local operator. Until the day the customer finally starts its vacation, there is no security for his money paid in advance.
- Too often charter clients return unsatisfied or even disappointed from their vacations because of insufficient local competence for complaint and damage management. The customers desperate escape into legal process wastes precious resources of charter brokers and suppliers and threatens the standing and reputation of the whole yacht charter industry.
In order to compete successful with other forms of tourism, home made problems in the charter market cannot be neglected anymore and need to be resolved.
SOLUTIONS
The described problems of the yacht charter market can only be defeated with quality evaluations that are based on two parts:
1. Certification of objective quality requirements.
2. Client reviews that provide subjective first-hand experience.
1. Quality Certification
One part of the YachtCheck® quality evaluation process is a standard quality certification that is based on a catalogue of internationally well accepted quality requirements.
YachtCheck® adopted the well known five-star quality classification of the hotel industry and developed sets of objective quality requirements that are applicable for yacht charter services. A charter operator that fulfils a relevant set of quality requirements will be certified with a Quality Star.
The quality stars will provide the subscribers valuable marketing power that will allow differentiating their charter services from competitors.
Read Classification
Read Requirements
2. Charter Client Reviews
The second part of the YachtCheck® quality evaluation is completely base on the charterer's experience. Charter clients can rate service specifications of the yacht, the operator (charter base) and the charter destination. Additionally the client can write personal annotations that can be positive and/or negative.
Charter Client Reviews
Important is, that YachtCheck® is not mixing the results of the 5-Star Quality Certification and the Client Reviews. The results of both evaluations are displayed separately to preserve its nature.